Seven Days, April 22, 2020 by Seven Days

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SICK

Everyone in a Burlington duplex battled the coronavirus — and lived to tell the tale B Y COURT NEY L AMDIN , PAGE 32

HARD KNOCKS

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Vermont state colleges in crisis

NO-POMP CIRCUMSTANCE Seniors end high school in isolation

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GROWTH INDUSTRY

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The pandemic gardening boom

Looking to the future. Since 1968, our family business has been honored to be a part of this caring community. We now stand with the people of Vermont and offer this message of support to all those who are working so hard to navigate this crisis every day!

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TAKEOUT maintains social distancing and reduces touchpoints. Check GoodToGoVermont.com to see what your favorite eatery is serving up in containers.

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WEEK IN REVIEW APRIL 15-22, 2020

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DO NOT ENTER

The U.S. and Canada agreed to extend the closure of the border through May 16. That Montréal visit will have to wait.

OUT TO SEA

VERMONT LAGS IN CENSUS RESPONSE The first mailings from the U.S. Census Bureau started arriving at homes on March 12. The next day, Gov. Phil Scott declared a state of emergency in Vermont. Five weeks later, only 42 percent of Vermont households have filled out the census form seeking once-perdecade data that determines electoral representation and federal aid. The state is lagging behind the national average by around nine points. Only four states have lower response rates. Social distancing shouldn’t impede answering. You can fill out census forms by mail, phone or — for the first time — online. But the pandemic has prevented census workers from knocking on doors at homes that haven’t responded and heading to shared housing such as college dorms and nursing homes. (The Census Bureau wants college students who have returned home because of the coronavirus pandemic to fill out forms as if they were still at school.) Michael Moser, who coordinates the Vermont State Data Center, has a theory about Vermont’s poor response rate. “Everyone is just overwhelmed,” he said. The census determines how federal and state gov-

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ernments apportion elected representation and helps to determine how much funding states get for federal programs such as Medicaid. According to Counting for Dollars 2020, a project of George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy, Vermont received $4.2 billion in census-guided federal funds in the 2017 fiscal year. Census data also reveals who lives in the state, regions and the country. “It provides this foundational data for us to understand our corner of the world and our population,” said John E. Adams, director of the Vermont Center for Geographic Information. The state’s large number of vacation homes could explain the low response rate. Census workers are planning to hit the streets, but not until June. Moser noted that the more people respond on their own, the less door-knocking census workers will have to do. “Fill out that form, go online, call the number and just get the census off your plate,” he said. You can read data editor Andrea Suozzo’s full story at sevendaysvt.com. And to respond to the census, go to 2020census.gov or call 844-330-2020.

Though the U.S. Navy canceled the public ceremony, it commissioned the USS Vermont on Saturday in Connecticut. Godspeed.

BETTER BAKING

On stoner holiday 4/20, Ben & Jerry’s came out in support of a bill that would legalize cannabis and expunge past weed convictions. Sweet.

GOOD NEWS

After pleading for financial help, the Valley News has raised more than $90,000 to keep running. That’s good for democracy.

That’s the percentage of Vermonters who reported being “food insecure” in a recent University of Vermont survey.

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LOOKING FORWARD

APRIL 22-29, 2020 VOL.25 NO.30

NEWS & POLITICS 11

From the Publisher

BY PAULA ROUTLY

Class Dismissed?

As state colleges teeter, lawmakers weigh bailout

Champlain College Names New President BY KEN PICARD

Where the Web Crawls

Rural Vermonters struggle to overcome the state’s digital divide BY KEVIN MCCALLUM

BY COLIN FLANDERS & KEVIN MCCALLUM

Vermont Requires Health Insurers to Cover COVID-19 Costs

Vermont Couple’s Primitive Hockey Stick Valued at $3.5 Million BY SASHA GOLDSTEIN

FEATURES 32

Home Sick

Health: Everyone in a Burlington duplex battled the coronavirus — and lived to tell the tale

BY DEREK BROUWER

BY KEVIN MCCALLUM

‘Dark Cloud’ Over St. Albans PD After Officer Charged With Rape

Mainframe of Shame

The $10.5 million IT failure that crashed Vermont’s unemployment system BY PAUL HEINTZ

ARTS NEWS 22

BY COURTNEY LAMDIN

An Early Goodbye

Education: Seniors close out school apart from their friends BY SALLY POLLAK

Pandemic Pastimes

A roundup of virtual ventures from Vermonters

BY PAMELA POLSTON

VIDEO SERIES

Online Thursday

Creative Economy

Emergency relief grants help Vermont artists pull through the pandemic

BY KRISTEN RAVIN

BY CHELSEA EDGAR

Listen Up

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Hackie CULTURE Retail Therapy Soundbites MUSIC Album Reviews Ask the Reverend ADVICE

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Life Lines Food + Drink Music + Nightlife Classes Classifieds + Puzzles Fun Stuff Personals

Zoom Seder

A poem

BY MADELEINE KUNIN

Three Vermont-based podcasts to get you through social distancing BY MARGARET GRAYSON

Story Time

Culture: Cultural organizations document Vermonters’ experiences in the coronavirus era

COLUMNS + REVIEWS

Victory for Gardening

Food: Nurseries and farms adapt to support a pandemic gardening boom BY JORDAN BARRY

VE R MO N T ’ S I N D E P E ND ENT VO I CE APRIL 22-29, 2020 VOL.25 NO.30 SEVENDAYSVT.COM

Home

SICK

Everyone in a Burlington duplex battled the coronavirus — and lived to tell the tale BY COURTNEY L AMDIN, PAGE 32

HARD KNOCKS

PAGE 12

Vermont state colleges in crisis

PAGE 38

GROWTH INDUSTRY

PAGE 44

The pandemic gardening boom

COVER IMAGE JAMES BUCK

SUPPORTED BY: Stuck in Vermont: Williston builder Todd Townsend tested positive for COVID-19. His mild symptoms lasted for about a month and are still lingering. He shared his experience to raise awareness about the virus and how it’s affecting Vermonters.

COVER DESIGN REV. DIANE SULLIVAN

Be strong Vermont Let's work together and help those in need.

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NO-POMP CIRCUMSTANCE Seniors end high school in isolation

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We’ll get through this together. Stay safe, stay strong, stay home. Sometimes all one needs to know is that you are thinking about them. All it takes is a little something. Stay strong, stay healthy.

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FROM THE PUBLISHER

Extra, Extra! Effort

CATHY RESMER

Almost every aspect of producing a newspaper has changed since September 6, 1995 — the publication date of the inaugural Seven Days. With a laptop and a smartphone, journalists can report stories from anywhere. Editing, designing and sending the paper to the printer requires software that didn’t exist in the ’90s. Also nonexistent back then: Zoom, Google Hangouts, Trello, Slack and Airtable, which all enable our staff to collaborate remotely during the pandemic. There’s just one department that still operates as it did 25 years ago: circulation. Every Wednesday morning, a truck loaded with freshly printed papers — that has traveled through the wee hours — pulls up to the loading dock behind our building. A team of drivers meets it; loads up their cars, trucks and vans with bundles of papers; then departs to deliver Seven Days to far-flung corners of Vermont. Sure, they’re wearing masks and gloves and packing locally made hand sanitizer these days, but the job itself hasn’t changed much. People’s habits have, though. The COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered many of our pickup spots, Above: A neighborhood rack in Winooski and trips to the grocery store are more stressful. Some Right: Circulation deputy Jeff Baron testing people shop only once every few weeks and might miss out a DIY bike trailer prototype in Burlington an issue or two. The entire paper — ads and all — is available in digital form, but many readers find having a print copy reassuring during this historic time. So last week, after our usual Wednesday deliveries, we tried something new — er, old. On Saturday, circulation deputy Jeff Baron borrowed a bike and a trailer from Burlington’s Old Spokes Home, loaded it up with stacks of Seven Days and hit the streets of the Queen City. Art director Diane Sullivan rode behind him on a BMX bike with a Bluetooth speaker blasting the Clash’s “London Calling.” Bringing the papers to the people! Starting this week, Seven Days staffers will visit neighborhoods in Burlington and Winooski — à la the August First bread bike — on some Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, weather permitting. Look for the “route of the day” on the Seven Days Facebook page and Instagram Live. We’ve also added some new neighborhood Want to help Seven Days and local journalism? drop spots. A number of employees — and Become a Super Reader. some former ones — have put Seven Days racks Look for the “Give Now” buttons at the top in their front yards. of sevendaysvt.com. Or send a check with Some readers have even volunteered to your address and contact info to: take actual paper routes, showing off their SEVEN DAYS, C/O SUPER READERS folding and tossing techniques. We’re looking P.O. BOX 1164 BURLINGTON, VT 05402-1164 into that, too. Whatever it takes. For more information on making a financial contribution to Seven Days, please contact Read on, Corey Grenier:

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EDUCATION

VT BUNGLED CRUCIAL SOFTWARE FIX PAGE 18

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EDUCATION

Protesters in Johnson urging passersby to support the colleges

Class Dismissed? As state colleges teeter, lawmakers weigh bailout B Y C O LI N FL A N D ER S & KEVIN MC C ALL UM

he Vermont legislature has resisted pleas to invest more in higher education for so long that the state college system ranks among the lowest in the country for public support. Now, with the system teetering toward a collapse propelled by the coronavirus pandemic, its chancellor last week proposed shuttering three campuses and laying off hundreds of people. His plan hit immediate, vehement opposition among state legislators, who are scrambling to delay a final decision by college trustees — even if that means bailing out the system they have so long overlooked. With the bill finally coming due, lawmakers face a choice: spending millions to save the campuses or allowing them to meet their fate. Lawmakers informed the Vermont State Colleges System on Tuesday that it was “possible” the legislature would be willing to fund a 2020-21 “bridge year” to cover the immediate losses from the coronavirus crisis, according to 12

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Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden). “The question we will have to entertain,” Ashe told his colleagues Tuesday afternoon, “is, would we put $25 million on the table to buy the time to have a better decision-making process, an independent set of eyes and a better understanding of the broader economic impacts of a school closure — or three school closures?” To be sure, declining enrollment had put the college system on shaky ground well before the coronavirus. System leaders carried out a controversial merger of Johnson and Lyndon State Colleges two years ago, creating the two-campus Northern Vermont University. But the system still projected a deficit of up to $4 million this fiscal year, a shortfall that ballooned after the coronavirus closed campuses in March. The system faces up to $10 million in losses this academic year, due in large part to anticipated reimbursements to students. It’s also projecting another $15

million to $18 million shortfall next year in expectation of more drops in enrollment. In response, chancellor Jeb Spaulding has proposed a dramatic restructuring that would close Northern Vermont University’s campuses in Lyndon and Johnson and shift programs to distant Castleton University. The plan would also close the Vermont Technical College campus in Randolph Center and move operations to that school’s Williston campus. The Community College of Vermont, which operates in a dozen locations, would not be affected. About 500 people would lose their jobs. Trustees had planned to vote on the proposal Monday, three days after it became public. That decision was postponed for at least a week after board members heard over the weekend from thousands of Vermonters who oppose the closures. The board convened an emergency meeting Tuesday night as this CLASS DISMISSED?

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Champlain College Names New President B Y K EN P IC A R D

Champlain College announced on Tuesday that it has hired Dr. Benjamin Akande as its new president, even as it seeks to weather the crisis wrought by the pandemic. Akande, who takes over the position on July 1, replaces Dr. Laurie Quinn, Champlain College’s provost and senior vice president for academics, who has served as interim president since July 1, 2019. The Nigerian-born, Americaneducated professor, administrator and economist becomes the college’s ninth president and the first person of color to serve in that position since it was established in 1878. “I am humbled and honored by the opportunity to lead Champlain College during this period of great transformation and even greater opportunity,” Akande said in a press statement. “While the challenges we currently face as global citizens are daunting, they also sharpen our focus and urge us both individually and as a community,to lead from wherever we are.” Like all of Vermont’s colleges, Burlington-based Champlain College faces one of the most precarious times in its history. Its campus has been shuttered by the coronavirus in exchange for online study only, and the prospects for in-person summer and fall semesters remain uncertain. Akande holds a PhD in economics from the University of Oklahoma and completed his postdoctoral studies at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. A former president of Westminster College, in Fulton, Mo., Akande currently serves as assistant vice chancellor for international affairs-Africa and as associate director of the Global Health Center at Washington University in St. Louis. Akande, 58, is an accomplished economist, scholar and global consultant to Fortune 500 companies, as well as to institutions of higher learning. In an online video message about his appointment, Akande sounded more like a motivational business speaker than a college administrator. “I will empower all of you to imagine new possibilities, to dare to dream what we cannot yet see, to be adaptable thinkers, daring change makers and inclusive innovators, because together we will espouse constructive impatience,” he said. Contact: ken@sevendaysvt.com

Where the Web Crawls Rural Vermonters struggle to overcome the state’s digital divide ST ORY & PHOT O BY KEVIN MC C AL L U M

Mitch Hunt using the Wi-Fi outside of the Craftsbury library

n normal times, it can be a challenge for Mitch Hunt to track down students or staff at the 140-acre Maplehill School and Farm in Plainfield, where he’s a dean. They could be honing carpentry skills in the shop, harvesting vegetables from the organic garden or tapping maples trees in the woods. Since the coronavirus pandemic forced the small alternative school to suspend classes in March, however, Hunt has had to go to even greater lengths to connect with his charges. Like many rural Vermonters, he has limited internet access and no cellphone service at his Northeast Kingdom home in Craftsbury, about 40 minutes north of Plainfield. So, to connect with students and staff, he drives several miles daily into the village of Craftsbury Common to use the public library’s Wi-Fi connection. The library is closed, of course, so he does much of his work from the front seat of his Toyota Matrix in the parking lot. “I’m pretty much managing a school from my car,” Hunt said one rainy April afternoon outside the white clapboard building.

Hunt is not alone. Most days, several people work in vehicles alongside his, some for just a few minutes and others for hours, according to librarian Susan O’Connell. Nor is Craftsbury the only town where rural Vermonters find themselves in search of a digital connection as they try to work and learn online. The coronavirus crisis has thrown into stark relief the digital divide between places like Chittenden County, where cellphone service and high-speed internet access are nearly universal, and rural towns with widely scattered homes not served by cell towers or broadband connections. Without broadband access, it can be difficult or impossible for parents to work from home, for children to take part in video calls with teachers and for patients to stay connected with their doctors through tele-health programs. D e s p i t e f e d e ra l i nve st m e n t s designed to improve the state’s connectivity, rural areas are “really up a creek” — their economies left in the lurch and their residents struggling to keep up, Rep. Laura Sibilia (I-Dover) said last week.

TECH

WHERE THE WEB CRAWLS

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HEALTH

Vermont Requires Health Insurers to Cover COVID-19 Costs BY K E VI N MC C A L L UM

Commercial insurance companies cannot charge Vermonters out-ofpocket costs for testing and treating COVID-19 during the state of emergency, state officials said last week. The new regulations require most insurance plans to waive all fees, copays, coinsurance and deductibles for those seeking diagnosis and treatment of the disease caused by the coronavirus. “During this unprecedented emergency, Vermonters deserve access to the care they need to stay safe and healthy,” Gov. Phil Scott said in a press release. “As we work to expand testing to more Vermonters with symptoms of COVID-19, it is critical that our efforts to help control the spread of the virus are not affected by insurance costs.” FILE: OLIVER PARINI

Coronavirus testing at the Vermont State Laboratory

The emergency regulation covers the most common type of health care insurance in Vermont, in which an employer pays an insurance company — such as Blue Cross Blue Shield — to assume the risk of paying medical bills for members. It does not cover self-funded plans, in which employers assume the risk and pay a third-party administrator to manage the payments. The state does not regulate what are known as self-insurance plans. The emergency regulation is retroactive to March 13, the date Scott declared a state of emergency. The rule requires insurers to cover the costs of testing; visits to doctor’s offices, urgent care centers and emergency rooms; and “medically necessary” treatment, including medications. The move is the latest in a series of efforts to ensure that those who need treatment can get it in Vermont. Anyone with questions about insurance coverage of COVID-19 in the state can call 800-964-1784 or email dfr.insuranceinfo@vermont.gov. m Contact: kevin@sevendaysvt.com

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“It’s like we’re trying to run with a twisted ankle,” Sibilia said. “This crisis is exacerbating the digital inequities that we were already experiencing in terms of education, government access and health care.” Schools in Sibilia’s legislative district — six tiny rural towns near the Massachusetts border — report that significant numbers of students lack broadband access at home. A survey by the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union showed 20 percent of families had limited internet speeds or data caps. The actual number is likely higher because the survey, conducted in part online, may not have captured everybody without internet service, according to superintendent Barbara Anne Komons-Montroll. State leaders, educators and data service providers are acutely aware of the problem and are scrambling to address it. “The crisis is highlighting that this infrastructure is necessary, and it’s inadequate,” said June Tierney, commissioner of the state Department of Public Service. Her department has worked for years to improve rural connectivity, largely by advocating for increased federal investment in data networks. The need is more acute in the coronavirus era. “Now we have the government directing people to stay home,” Tierney said. “We have the government directing people to get their educational needs met at home. So, government clearly has an obligation to make that feasible.” About 77 percent of addresses in Vermont have access to broadband internet service, defined as a download speed of at least 25 megabits per second and an upload speed of three megabits per second, according to the Public Service Board. Those speeds are good enough for a single user to stream a movie on Netflix, but they aren’t fast enough to easily accommodate multiple users and connected devices. By contrast, Burlington Telecom customers can get speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second, or 40 times as fast. The 77 percent estimate doesn’t account for addresses where the topography — mountains, for example — blocks cellular signals. Nor can every household afford service even when it is available, said Clay Purvis, director of the department’s Telecommunications and Connectivity Division. Many residents have gotten by without broadband internet at home in part

because they have access at work. Now they are struggling with bandwidth needs that exceed their home connection speeds, Purvis said. The cable, telephone and cellular networks themselves seem to be keeping up with Vermonters’ increased demand, in some cases offering to lift data caps and open up Wi-Fi networks to noncustomers during the pandemic. But people without sufficient broadband are having difficulty transferring large files and viewing media-rich content. Slow internet responses aren’t always the fault of the access providers, Purvis said. In some cases, web services — such as Netflix, Zoom and Skype — have been overburdened by the steep increase in users. Work platforms that weren’t designed to accommodate huge numbers of users can also slow response times, Purvis said, noting that the software platform his office uses has experienced sluggishness.

I’M PRETTY MUCH

MANAGING A SCHOOL FROM MY CAR. MITC H H UNT

“I don’t think they ever designed it with the capacity where every state employee could log on to the [virtual private network] at the same time,” Purvis said, referring to state government’s remote network. There are, nevertheless, projects under way to improve broadband access across the state. One of the places where the digital divide is felt most deeply is the Northeast Kingdom. Only half of its addresses are served by broadband, according to Katherine Sims, director of the Northeast Kingdom Collaborative, a group of organizations that support economic and community development. “We were already behind, and this has accelerated how behind we are,” Sims said. The lack of good internet access permeates every aspect of life in the Northeast Kingdom. It makes it harder for residents to file unemployment claims or renew driver’s licenses, for kids to take part in remote learning, and for towns to attract new residents and businesses, Sims said. Professionals who rely on internet access often have two providers for times when one goes down, she said.

To address the problem, 27 towns in the Northeast Kingdom voted last fall to form a community broadband district that will seek grants to expand access. The measure passed in every town in which it was on the ballot. “It was not a hard sell,” Simms said. There are other signs of progress. Microsoft is funding free public Wi-Fi in 31 Vermont communities. The tech giant is working with the Massachusetts-based RTO Wireless and Bethel-based Up and Running I.T. to install the devices and provide the free service for five years. Justin McCoart, Up and Running I.T.’s owner, has crisscrossed the state in recent weeks to install the rugged, powerful Wi-Fi antennas at outdoor public locations to ensure maximum possible coverage. “Every time something good happens, Vermont comes last,” McCoart said. “This time we wanted to do it right.” Public Wi-Fi access points are viewed by some as a mere stopgap. When the Department of Public Service published a map of all Wi-Fi hot spots in conjunction with Gov. Phil Scott’s stay-at-home order, some critics noted that the map merely highlights the inequities of the status quo. Rep. Mike Yantachka (D-Charlotte), a member of the House Energy and Technology Committee, told Tierney he wasn’t bowled over by the effort. “Folks who’ve been advised to go to libraries and school buildings and park in their car and have the kids do their homework in the car, I think that’s pretty kludgy,” Yantachka said, using a word to describe an awkward work-around. Tierney said she’s not satisfied with the status quo, either, and her department will continue pushing to improve connectivity. She noted that additional federal stimulus rounds hold the promise of more money for infrastructure. “I fully intend to use this as a battering ram with the federal government to get them to understand … how this pandemic highlights the need to think about this critical infrastructure,” Tierney said. In the meantime, Vermonters like Mitch Hunt are making do. After calling a few people from the parking lot of the Craftsbury library, Hunt perched on the building’s west-facing porch which, weather permitting, offers glorious views of Mount Mansfield. “One upside to all this is, there’s all sorts of cool out-of-the-box thinking going on now,” Hunt said — creativity he hopes can help rural schools thrive going forward. Then he plugged his laptop into a wall outlet, parked himself in a green wooden rocking chair and settled in for a chilly Zoom call with colleagues. m Contact: kevin@sevendaysvt.com

SPORTS

Vermont Couple’s Primitive Hockey Stick Valued at $3.5 Million

about six years ago. That’s when Germaine saw something online about a circa 1850s hockey stick. Known as the “Rutherford Stick,” it looked awfully similar to Germaine’s own — and had been appraised at $4.5 million. “It piqued my interest,” Germaine said with a laugh. “I thought, Well, maybe I better look into this.”

best known as the keeper of the Stanley Cup, the National Hockey League’s championship trophy. “He liked the stick and said he’d like to have it [at the Hall of Fame] on display, but he wasn’t allowed to purchase it,” Germaine said. The Morses made several trips to Canada to confer with experts, and they had wood

BY S A S H A GO L D S TE I N

For decades, Germaine and Gary Morse kept the stick in an umbrella stand by the entryway in their Vermont home. Germaine’s brother, Anthony Bean, had found the weathered, slightly crooked piece of wood inside his grandmother’s Northfield home after buying it in 1980. Knowing his sister’s affinity for family mementos, Bean gave it to her, thinking it was an old field hockey stick or something. “He thought it might be a conversation piece,” said Germaine, 70. It’s certainly a conversation piece now. That piece of wood is a primitive ice hockey stick that could be 170 years old. It was appraised at $3.5 million and is up for auction online through May 16, with a starting bid of $100,000. The heirloom was little more than an afterthought, sitting in an old crock the Morses use as an umbrella stand, until

The Morse Stick COURTESY OF GOLDIN AUCTIONS

One of the first things they did was buy a 700-pound gun safe to store the stick. They told only a few family members about their discovery. “We didn’t want anybody trying to find it,” Germaine said. “We’re kind of worrywarts!” Germaine started investigating online, “and one thing would lead to another,” she said. But they often hit dead ends. She tracked down many of the people who helped research the Rutherford Stick. Among those were hockey historian Bill Fitsell and Phil Pritchard, the curator at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto and the man

analysis and carbon dating done on the stick, among other research. That analysis found that the stick dates back to somewhere between the 1850s and 1870s, an age that makes it one of the oldest hockey sticks still in existence. The Morses also learned that the stick was made from a single branch of a hornbeam tree; someone hand-carved the stick’s blade. Members of the Mi’kmaq First Nation in Nova Scotia used the trees to make hockey sticks, Germaine said she learned during her research. While the first organized indoor ice hockey game was

played in Montréal in 1875, the game’s roots date back much further. Germaine’s French Canadian grandfather was born in Nova Scotia and later moved to Vermont, and Germaine suggested it’s possible he brought the stick with him. If he had, it likely would have first belonged to her great-grandfather, then ultimately ended up in her grandmother’s Northfield home. “It’s been a very interesting journey,” Gary, 71, said of all the research, which included exploring Germaine’s family genealogy. The Morses were floored when they finally got the appraisal: $3.5 million. They eventually hooked up with Goldin Auctions, a sports collectibles company in New Jersey, and got the stick listed last week. As of Tuesday, there were no bids. With the valuable item in the hands of the auction house in a New Jersey vault, the Morses feel more free to speak publicly. The couple doesn’t have any expectations of what the stick will fetch. They plan to split the proceeds 50-50 with Germaine’s brother, since he found it and gifted it to them. “I don’t get too excited over the money part until it goes down the road,” Germaine said. “I don’t let it go to my head. We’re just hoping to build up a little retirement again.” Said Gary: “Whatever we get, we get.” Contact: sasha@sevendaysvt.com

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news issue of Seven Days headed to press, but no action was expected. Members expected to vote on a proposal within 10 days. On Monday, Spaulding warned that the board must act swiftly to save the system. He said staying the course would force him to start drawing on reserves by summer, with a potential cumulative deficit of $85 million expected over the next five years. “The reason for making this recommendation is because the entire system is at risk,” Spaulding said. “Without decisive action or with inaction, we jeopardize all of the pieces.” Despite Spaulding’s intentions, his plan to eliminate three campuses triggered a mutiny among his rank and file. Alumni and faculty groups from Northern Vermont University voted “no confidence” in him on Sunday. And more than 100 people — many of whom are students, faculty and alumni — delivered the same plea at the trustees’ meeting on Monday. They contended that the closures would shrink Vermonters’ access to higher education and cripple local economies. “Choosing to close every campus in the [Northeast Kingdom], the poorest area of the state, one already struggling, will truly devastate the communities which depend on these campuses,” said Christina Cotnoir, who is the assistant to the dean of students at Northern Vermont University and owns a small business in Derby. Others tore into the chancellor for drafting the plan behind closed doors and criticized the trustees for preparing to vote on it without public debate. Some even called for Spaulding to step down. “The closing of NVU doesn’t just feel like a closing, it feels like an attack,” said Kevin Carney, a Northeast Kingdom resident. “I am just so, so angry, and so hurt, that fellow Vermonters would do this without forethought, without giving us a chance to think about it, or prepare for it, or to design other ideas.” “I have to join the choir of people who are calling for Jeb Spaulding’s resignation,” Carney continued. “It’s getting pretty loud, and I hope people are please listening.” Several students said they had no idea how they would finish their education if the campuses close. Jade Elias, a second-year student at Community College of Vermont, said she had long hoped to finish her degree at Northern Vermont University and had planned to start at the Johnson campus in the fall. “I might change my degree. I might go out of state,” she told college officials. “But either way, I will have much more debt than I planned to, because of all of you.” Not everyone faults Spaulding for his proposal. 16

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

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Timothy Donovan, who served as the chancellor for six years before Spaulding took over in 2015, said the state colleges have been losing support for decades: State funding accounted for half of Vermont State College’s revenues in 1980; today, it’s roughly 17 percent. Donovan, who is no stranger to pleading with the legislature for funding, said he finds it ironic that some of the same lawmakers who once suggested Vermont might be better off with fewer state colleges are now recoiling from the idea. “This is not a crisis borne of the pandemic. It’s just laid open by the pandemic,” Donovan said. “It’s 30 years in the making.” A former state legislator himself, Spaulding has kept his criticisms of lawmakers to a minimum, saying he recognizes they only have so much money to spend. But he also fired a shot across their bow: Giving lawmakers the power to decide the system’s fate will “do nothing but hasten inaction,” he said — a result “more dangerous to people’s access to education” than his proposal. That hasn’t stopped lawmakers from inserting themselves into the discussion. Spaulding’s plan triggered a passionate debate among senators this week over who was to blame for the crisis and how to move forward. “Our tuition at our state colleges is higher than in any other state because we don’t invest in the colleges,” Sen. Ruth Hardy (D-Addison) said on a call with the full Senate. Hardy suggested it was time for the state to seriously consider merging the state colleges system with the University of Vermont, or at least facilitating “better

collaboration” between the two. Such a merger was discussed in the 1970s, she said, and “this might be an opportunity to make that marriage really happen.” Ashe tried to tamp down his colleagues’ penchant for brainstorming solutions, at one point reminding them not to “pretend we know how to run colleges.” “I know we can’t run a college,” responded Sen. Bobby Starr (D-Essex/ Orleans), one of the sharpest critics of the college system’s leadership. “But I bet you $10 we could hire people that could run our colleges!” Starr claimed college leaders had years to solve the problems but only ever came to the legislature asking for more money. He said working with trustees to resolve the issues would be “a total waste of our time,” and he suggested bringing in a team of outside professionals to assess the situation. Other senators, however, stressed that the legislature needed to take responsibility for the state of affairs. “We talk about the fact that the colleges need $30 million, then we give them $1 million and then we pat ourselves on the back and say, ‘See, we’re giving the colleges increased funding!’” said Sen. Anthony Pollina (P/D-Washington), referring to past legislative debates. “Actually, what we’re doing is, we’re hanging them out to dry.” Sen. Ginny Lyons (D-Chittenden) had a similar take. “I know that there are those who are categorically against [intervening] and believe that it’s a historical problem,” she told Seven Days. “The truth is, it is a historical problem, and we can’t say that we haven’t been a part of that.”

The strongest sign that the legislature may indeed support a temporary bailout came from Sen. Jane Kitchel (D-Caledonia), chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, who said it seemed like a “very reasonable” way to spend some of Vermont’s recently received $1.25 billion in federal stimulus funds. But Sen. Dick Mazza (D-Grand Isle), another leading voice in the Senate, insisted the message to the college system’s leaders should be that the legislature is willing to work with them, not just bail them out. “If we say, ‘Here’s $25 million,’ they’re going to walk away with it and say, ‘Well, we made it another year,’” Mazza said. The broader problem facing the system is that, having sounded the alarm about an impending fiscal crisis, Spaulding may have put the long-term viability of the campuses at risk, according to Sen. Dick McCormack (D-Windsor). Anyone who was thinking about attending one of those campuses in the fall will likely reconsider knowing they are on the chopping block, McCormack said, urging that the legislature make a stronger statement of commitment to keeping the campuses open for the long term. “We don’t want to go and undermine their credibility, because that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” he said. But Spaulding has said that keeping the campuses open would require not only $25 million up front, but also $25 million annually moving forward. No one knows where that money would come from. That’s why Sen. Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden) has consistently tried to “stiffen the spine” of his colleagues by reminding them that keeping the campuses open for the long run would require that the state open its checkbook. “If you’re going to beat the drum to keep these campuses open, then you have to vote yes when we raise the taxes,” Baruth, chair of the Senate Education Committee, told Seven Days. Beyond a potential short-term bailout, Baruth didn’t sound optimistic about finding a sustainable funding source. The state may have even less money to go around, thanks to the pandemic, he said. Still, he finds it hard to fathom losing the only public residential campuses in the Northeast Kingdom. “My mind rejects that, and my heart rejects that,” he said. He added: “I’m struggling then, as the trustees have for months and months, with — is there another way?” m Contact: colin@sevendaysvt.com, kevin@sevendaysvt.com Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy at sevendaysvt.com/disclosure.

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A police officer with the scandal-ridden St. Albans Police Department is accused of repeatedly raping a family member when they were children, then assaulting her this month as the victim began speaking up about the abuse. Zachary Pigeon, 29, and his 56-year-old father, Allen Pigeon, were arrested Sunday and pleaded not guilty in state court Monday to charges of kidnapping, unlawful restraint, obstruction of justice, burglary

“he had heard a lot of things about him,” according to the affidavit. A passenger in the car claimed she told another responding officer that Pigeon had molested the relative. Zachary Pigeon’s attorney, Mark Kaplan, said his client “expects to be exonerated of all charges.” The allegations are yet another shocking blow to the St. Albans Police Department, which now has four current

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Zachary Pigeon

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and simple assault. Zachary Pigeon will be arraigned again Wednesday on charges of sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault, prosecutors said. A Vermont Superior Court judge released both men on Monday pending trial. They each face up to life in prison. A female relative of Zachary Pigeon told Vermont State Police troopers this month that he had sexually assaulted her on numerous occasions from 2003 to 2007, when Pigeon was a teenager. He used a box cutter and threats to coerce her to perform different sex acts, the woman told police. Pigeon initially denied having any sexual contact with the woman, but police said he later “recanted,” saying instead that he had consensual sex with her in 2018, according to a court affidavit. Now 26 years old, the woman told police of the sex assaults on April 17. She also reported an April 5 incident in which two masked men broke into her trailer while she was sleeping, dragged her outside and threw her off the front porch. The men then used a lit cigar to burn her across her back and threatened “that if she said anything more, or tried to get them in any more trouble, she’d be dead,” according to the affidavit. The woman told state troopers that she recognized the men by their voices as Zachary and Allen Pigeon. The woman also said Allen Pigeon left her a since-deleted voicemail from a private number in which he threatened to “slit her throat” if she didn’t “shut her mouth.” Several weeks before the alleged assault and threats, Zachary Pigeon arrested a man who is close to the alleged victim’s family for driving without a license. During the encounter, the man told Pigeon that

or former officers who are the subjects of active criminal investigations or have been charged with violent crimes. Former sergeant Jason Lawton was fired last summer after punching a handcuffed woman in a holding cell. He was later charged with assault. Two other former officers — corporals Mark Schwartz and Joel Daugreilh — are subjects of separate, ongoing criminal investigations into their on-duty conduct. “It’s certainly a dark cloud over the St. Albans Police Department,” Franklin County State’s Attorney Jim Hughes said, adding that he doesn’t view the problems as systemic. Earlier this year, Seven Days published bodycam video that showed Schwartz using a Taser within seconds of encountering a man on a city sidewalk. The department defended his conduct in that incident as legal. But as a result of the public scrutiny, the department examined other incidents involving Schwartz, according to Gary Taylor, the longtime chief. That review turned up another troubling case in which Schwartz used force during a “warrantless, unauthorized search,” Taylor said this week. Schwartz resigned March 4 while under internal investigation, Taylor said. The chief referred the case to the Vermont State Police for a criminal investigation, which is ongoing. Taylor placed Pigeon on unpaid administrative leave this week, pending his criminal case. “It’s absolutely nothing I could have ever guessed,” Taylor said of the allegations. “I’m completely surprised.” m Contact: derek@sevendaysvt.com

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SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

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news

Mainframe of Shame The $10.5 million IT failure that crashed Vermont’s unemployment system B Y PAUL HEI N TZ ©DREAMSTIME.COM | GINASANDERS

or nearly a decade, the Vermont Department of Labor sought to replace the rickety mainframe computer that has powered its unemployment insurance system since the 1980s. Under a federal program designed to encourage cross-border collaboration, Vermont worked with a series of other states to build a cloud-based system that could more efficiently and reliably cut checks to the unemployed. But after years of infighting, delays and cost overruns, Vermont and its two most recent partners, Idaho and North Dakota, gave up and parted ways in late February. By then, Vermont had spent roughly $10.5 million in federal funding on the failed IT project — and had little to show for it. “We weren’t getting the results that we wanted out of this, and it wasn’t working well at all,” Gov. Phil Scott explained. The demise of the Internet Unemployment System Consortium was just the latest in a long series of failed IT overhauls overseen by the state. It was hardly the most expensive, and because it was federally funded, lawmakers paid it little attention. Had it not been for COVID-19, its death may have gone largely unnoticed. But weeks after the collaboration ended, the coronavirus pandemic prompted a surge in unemployment claims that overwhelmed the decades-old IBM mainframe and the roughly 15 Department of Labor employees who process claims. The unprecedented volume repeatedly froze and crashed the system, according to Secretary of Digital Services John Quinn, who compared the result to “the spinning wheel of death” one might encounter on an Apple Mac computer. By the end of last week, 34,000 Vermonters who had filed for unemployment were still awaiting payments. Facing a backlash from homebound and cash-strapped constituents, Scott set a Saturday night deadline to resolve the problems, pledging to send $1,200 checks to anyone still stuck in the system by the end of the weekend. Come Monday morning, the governor showed up at the state’s Middlesex mail processing facility toting boxes filled with nearly 8,400 checks. “I understand these delays have

TECH

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

been devastating for Vermonters who are staying home to stop the spread [of the coronavirus] and save lives but who still need to put food on the table and pay their bills,” Scott said at a press conference later that morning. State officials who work with the antiquated computer system say that if it had been replaced as planned, more Vermonters would have received unemployment benefits sooner. They caution, though, that technological challenges weren’t the only ones they faced. “It would have helped with some aspects, but it’s not like it would have been smooth sailing,” said interim Labor Commissioner Michael Harrington. Because the unemployment insurance program is heavily regulated by the federal government, claims are frequently flagged for inconsistencies and potential fraud, requiring department staffers to address and adjudicate the issues — a labor-intensive process. “The UI system is just designed to have some level of human interaction and decision making as part of it,” Harrington said. His department typically handles just 3,200 claims at a time, he estimated, and has the capacity to process up to 9,000 at a time. In a typical recession, it takes months for the unemployment rate to swell, allowing the department to staff up gradually. “To go from 3,000 claims to 70,000 claims in a matter of three to

four weeks is just unimaginable,” he said. “Nobody could have foreseen it.” But the state’s technological deficiencies have exacerbated the staffing shortage because the computer system is challenging to use and requires extensive training. It also frequently breaks down — and hardly anyone knows how to fix it. According to Quinn, who also serves as Vermont’s chief technology officer, only 10 or so programmers on the state payroll know the nearly obsolete COBOL language necessary to tweak and patch the system. For the most part, according to several state government leaders, that job falls to a 44-year-old Vermont Technical College graduate named Hunter Thompson, who has worked for the state for 17 years. Thompson spent much of that time at the Department of Labor, where he learned COBOL and, just as importantly, the intricacies of unemployment law. Though he has since been promoted to division director in the Agency of Digital Services, he is called back to his old department whenever the mainframe runs into trouble — which, recently, has been constantly. “People are getting checks and people are getting the support that they need because this guy’s there at midnight making sure it doesn’t explode,” said Dustin Degree, Scott’s director of workforce expansion. “He’s trying to keep a treadmill from eating an encyclopedia.”

According to Quinn, the mainframe is about the size of a refrigerator and sits in a Montpelier data center that “looks like one of those 1970s NASA space launch rooms.” “That guy is a machine,” Quinn said of Thompson. “He’s processed more claims by himself than everyone else put together.” Thompson himself is more modest about his contributions. In an email to Seven Days, he called his work part of a team effort. “It is by no means a one-man operation and I am only one piece of this puzzle,” he wrote. The state’s reliance on a dwindling number of programmers to keep the mainframe running has been recognized for years as a major vulnerability. “You always had the sense that it was fragile,” said Secretary of Commerce Lindsay Kurrle, who preceded Harrington as commissioner of labor. “Part of that was people sounding the alarm that this is pretty old and the people who know how to fix it are getting to retirement age.” An independent review of the state’s IT projects commissioned by the legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office in 2017 noted that IBM no longer supports the system, and few vendors will work on it. “The inability to provide this support puts Vermonters at risk,” the report found. Since the last recession, touched off by the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Department of Labor has encouraged states to jettison their aging unemployment processing systems. The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided $7 billion to modernize them — but the money came with strings attached: The feds wanted each state to team up with others to reduce the cost of development. From the start, the plan appeared problematic. According to a 2012 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, state officials noted that unemployment systems — not to mention procurement, budgeting and IT systems — varied greatly from one state to the next. One unnamed official mentioned in the report “questioned whether a common platform for a system can be successfully built and made transferable between states in an economically viable manner.” In 2011, Vermont teamed up with Maryland and West Virginia to build a

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new system, but the Green Mountain was “a disaster” from the get-go. “It all VIRTUAL State withdrew four years later over sounds very good, but having spent 20 Stocking flour, yeast and more SESSIONS concerns about which entity would years in state government, that’s just control the technology. In 2016, not the way states work,” he said. 8 SO. MAIN STREET Though the three states were equal Vermont hitched up with Idaho, which ST. ALBANS had already managed to replace its partners on paper, Quinn said, Idaho 524-3769 BOOK YOUR mainframe and was looking to share its “held all the cards” because its engiCurbside pick-up available FREE CONSULTATION AT proprietary software with others. North neers were the ones doing the programDakota later signed on, forming a trio. ming. “We were never able to make the RAILC IT Y M ARK E T V T.CO M YOURJOYFULLIFETIDY.COM In a December 2016 report to the governance work,” he said. Another problem, Harrington added, legislature, state technology officials expressed confidence that the project was that it became increasingly clearUntitled-6 1 1 4/13/20 4/17/20 12v-RailCityMarket041520.indd 10:12 AM would be completed by the end of 2018, over the years that the commonalities but the deadline kept slipbetween the states’ unemping. A 2019 version of ployment systems were the same report featured far fewer than originally a new completion date of understood, requiring July 2021. unexpected work to make “Constant changes in Idaho’s program meet scope due to decisions Vermont’s needs. made by both the Vermont “It’s too bad it didn’t and Idaho teams has work out, but in the end we resulted in an extended just had to say, ‘Listen, we C O M M ER C E timeline,” the report can’t in good conscience S EC R ETA RY read. “In addition, the continue down the road LI N D S AY K U R R LE we’re on where the deadlack of transparency into the Idaho roadmap has line gets extended and presented challenges prohibiting the extended and we’ll eventually have to Vermont team to accurately estimate spend state dollars,’” Harrington said. the implementation schedule for the What comes next for the state’s project.” beleaguered unemployment system is The report questioned whether far from clear. Starting from scratch enough federal funding remained to see wouldn’t be cheap — and even though it through completion. Harrington is now confident that the “The problems that were happening feds won’t penalize Vermont for withwere arguably going to bankrupt the drawing from the compact, they’re project and leave us with no money for unlikely to provide more funding. maintenance and support,” said Kurrle, According to Quinn, one back-of-thewho left the Department of Labor last envelope estimate from a technology summer. “So even if we had gotten to contractor found that a new system the launch, we would have burned could cost Vermont as much as $37 through all the money just because it million. had taken so long.” For now, the state is working through According to Quinn and Harrington, the current crisis by coming up with the state stuck with the project as long work-arounds. A new process to handle as it did in part because it feared the the next influx of claims from indepenfeds would attempt to claw back the dent contractors and the self-employed money it had already spent if the collab- will bypass the mainframe. And Quinn oration sputtered out. But by the end of said he is expediting a plan to outsource last year, it was clear it could not go on. the work currently performed by the Scott met by phone with his counter- mainframe to a data center in New parts in Idaho and North Dakota and, on Jersey, though it will still use the same February 28, the three governors wrote clunky software. U.S. Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia to Until then, the state will have to NORTHERN VERMONT • CHAMPLAIN VALLEY • CENTRAL VERMONT inform him that they were dissolving hope that the system — and Hunter the consortium. Thompson — keep working. m According to Quinn, the very concept of a multistate collaboration Contact: paul@sevendaysvt.com

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SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

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lifelines

OBITUARIES, VOWS, CELEBRATIONS

OBITUARIES Stephen Albright

1949-2020 BURLINGTON, VT. Stephen Albright died on Sunday morning, April 19, 2020, in Burlington. He was born on July 13, 1949, in Hagerstown, Md., the son of Roger Lynch Albright and Jeanne Stewart Fraser Albright. Stephen spent his early years growing up in the Mendon and Rutland area, which provided him with many fond memories. His family later moved to Burlington, where he attended Burlington High School and the University of Vermont.

Stephen was a self-taught musician who learned to play guitar in his late teens. He was involved with local bands such as Sass, the Lights and Fake Cities, which played at school dances and local hot spots such as the Mill in Winooski and Hunt’s and Nectar’s in Burlington. He wrote many original pieces of

music and became an excellent guitarist with a soulful touch. He was always glad to be a mentor to young up-andcoming guitarists. He was also creative in many other artistic areas, such as drawing, painting and leathercraft. In his mid- to late twenties, Stephen developed both mental and physical disabilities that he suffered from throughout his adult life. He still pursued his music and other artistic pursuits when he could and lived most of his adult life in an apartment at 101 College Street in downtown Burlington. He loved to walk on the marketplace and was a friendly face to many folks on the street and in the stores he frequented. As his health failed, he stayed at home more and finally moved to Birchwood Terrace for the last years of his life.

Once he moved to Birchwood, his friends and family noticed a big change in Stephen’s attitude and well-being. He finally seemed at peace and happy with his day-to-day life. He participated in many activities there and was back to his social, sweet self. He enjoyed talking to us on the phone about his experiences and the friends he was meeting. He laughed again and was able to spread his love and joy to everyone around him. Even during his quarantine due to contracting the coronavirus, he maintained a positive attitude and talked with us on the phone. We were able to Zoom with him a couple of times on his last day due to the thoughtful and caring PA at Birchwood who kept us apprised of his condition. We are very grateful to

all the health care professionals and workers for the care Stephen received at Birchwood, especially during this very difficult time. Please take comfort in knowing Stephen went to rest under the best possible care conditions, thanks to the attention of his family and friends, and the staffs of Birchwood Terrace, UVM Medical Center and Howard Mental Health. After hearing the news of Stephen’s passing, his cousin Barbara said, “Above all, I think, Stephen believed in love.”

Want to memorialize a loved one in Seven Days? Post your remembrance online and in print at sevendaysvt.com/lifelines. Or contact us at lifelines@sevendaysvt.com or 865-1020, ext. 10.

Sharon “Sherry” Marie Boivin

JUNE 9, 1960-APRIL 10, 2020 BURLINGTON, VT. The world has lost an exceptionally kind and loving soul in Sherry, a generous and affectionate mother and grandmother, and a compassionate friend to many, who died wise but far too young. Born at Burlington, Vt.’s Lund Center and adopted by loving parents Eugene and Annie Boivin, Sherry attended Morrisville’s People’s Academy High School, graduating with the class of 1978. Sherry was strong-willed and had a wonderful sense of humor and a big heart. She’d walk down the street with a smile and greeting for every person she saw. Her visitors usually left with a bear hug, an armful of gifts and a plate of food, including her famous oatmeal-coconut-butterscotch-chip cookies. Sherry had a strong faith and loved God. She was humble but had many talents, such as sketching, sewing and crocheting intricate laces, a skill inherited from her grandmother, Sitto. She made numerous blankets and scarves for family, friends and community members in need.

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

Sherry was a hard worker who imbued meaning into everything she did. A longtime owner of a cleaning business with a reputation for fairness and honesty, she viewed cleaning as a labor of love, the act of “making something beautiful again.” In her younger years, she enjoyed downhill skiing, yard work, ice-skating, kicking a soccer ball and playing outside with her children, Melissa, Timothy and Matthew. Sherry adored, and was adored by, her children, encouraging their individuality and reminding them, sometimes daily, that she loved and was proud of them. She fiercely loved her grandchildren, Christian and Ava, and spent many joyous moments reading, doing artwork and playing with them. Sherry loved the ocean and the beauty of nature. Her Decker Towers home was filled with seashells, books,

Stephen is survived by his brothers Andrew and David, his sister Jody, his cousins, and loving friends. He was predeceased by his parents and his sister Elizabeth (Libby) Fraser Albright. As far back as we can remember, Stephen always left a phone message when he couldn’t reach us and always signed off with, “Over and out for now. Love, your brother Stephen.” A celebration of his life will be held at a later date to be announced.

art supplies, homemade blankets and family photos. She felt a connection with the spring daffodils, the chickadees and starfish. During a walk at dawn, she and her children once rescued great numbers of beached starfish, returning them to sea. Sherry, an optimist to the core, believed that everyone’s story mattered, that we are all special and worthy of love. Her compassion, sensitivity, and open and loving heart shone through even as she endured trauma, loss and alcoholism. Her willingness to try and try again was admirable. She was fond of saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” and “Showing up is half the battle.” She practiced forgiveness even when it was difficult and looked for the best in people. Although we are devastated by her death, we are so grateful to have known her in life.

Among her many friends and relatives, Sherry leaves behind her mother, Annie Boivin; brother James Boivin and his wife, Janeen; uncle Victor Boivin and his wife, Cecile; aunt Isabel Handy; daughter Melissa Anne Moran and her partner, Adam Forguites; son Timothy James Moran and his fiancée, Misty Bellew; son Matthew John Moran and his wife, Miriam Rothschild; beloved grandchildren Christian Mitchell, Ava Moran, Seth Burt, Jordan Burt and Brianna Christenson; Timothy O. Moran, Sherry’s former husband of 10 years and a close friend; her “forever” sister-inlaw Karen Lykins; and niece Erica Brinkman and her husband, Craig, and their children Faith, Bailey and Peyton. She was predeceased by her father, Eugene Boivin; her eldest brother, Edward C. Boivin; her aunt and uncle Marion and Gabriel Handy; former mother-in-law and friend, Florence Moran; and Heidi Ryder, a friend. A funeral and celebration of life will be postponed until it is possible to gather. In lieu of flowers, you may send donations in her name by mail to the ACT1/Bridge Program c/o Howard Center Development Office, 208 Flynn Ave., Suite 3J, Burlington, VT 05401.

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Then I hear it, the roar of the F-35 engines taking off at the airport. I run outside, usually tripping over one of my dogs, in hopes of getting a glimpse of them as they pass over my house. Sometimes I can only hear them, and other times I am able to catch a glimpse as they head out on their daily training mission. My heart races and I smile as I watch and listen to the wonderful sound of freedom! My sense of calm is overwhelming! Thank you to the Vermont Air National Guard and the F-35s for helping me stay sane during this otherwise dismal time. Cathy Chamberlain

COLCHESTER

HOME, SAFE HOME

I am writing this thinking about how I can help from the safety of my own home. That is the only way to help: by staying home. People all over the world have been home for at least three weeks, but it’s not over yet. Although, for some reason, governors are considering reopening already [Off Message: “In First Turn of ‘Spigot,’ Scott to Allow Some Vermont Businesses to Reopen,” April 17]. I have witnessed many of my peers continuing to hang out in person. A deep anger fills me when I see videos on their Snapchat stories of them less than six feet apart. People I deeply trusted and respected have destroyed their reputations with me by putting others and themselves in danger by doing this. Every time I strike up a conversation with someone, the first thing they always mention is how awful they think this is. Even some of the cartoons I see in Seven Days are negative. There is no reason to feel that way. There are so many opportunities for growth and creativity. But people shouldn’t feel any pressure, as I have spent a few days just playing the game “Animal Crossing,” and that is OK, too. In conclusion, there is no reason to end the quarantine now. Doing so would cause great death. Providing help is necessary, though, because not doing so is leading people to make decisions about their safety that they shouldn’t have to be making. Gov. Phil Scott was right to extend emergency orders because, at the end of it, we’ll be better people in a healthier world. David Beauregard Nicholls

FERRISBURGH

Nicholls is a 16-year-old high school student.

[Re Off Message: “In First Turn of ‘Spigot,’ Scott to Allow Some Vermont Businesses to Reopen,” April 17]: I am concerned that mask wearing in public has not been made mandatory. It is a risky move, and it just isn’t safe. This virus is not going away. It is going to hide in all the corners of our society until it can be vanquished with a vaccine or a viable treatment. The mandatory wearing of masks in public is critical for four reasons: 1. To keep us safe from the virus and to keep us from spreading the virus to others. We know the virus spreads by inhaling infected droplets that are expelled through talking, sneezing and coughing. A mask, worn properly, makes us safer. 2. Vermonters are just as vulnerable today as they were on March 25. When vacationers come to Vermont with their critically needed dollars, as they must for our economy to survive, we all are susceptible to infection. 3. Sometimes social distancing isn’t possible. Even if we maintain six feet of distance in a store, we can’t stop others from walking by us as we ponder whether we want green beans or broccoli. 4. Finally, people need to feel safe. Right now, at the grocery store and at other public places, most people are wearing masks, but many are not. We can’t have people sneezing on the vegetables or racks. A rule will ward off that problem. Just like the “No shirt, no shoes, no service” rule, we can easily have the “No face covering, no service” rule. Doug Friant

SOUTH LONDONDERRY

KINGDOM NEEDS COLLEGE

[Re Off Message: “Proposal to Shutter VSC Campuses Hits Quick and Furious Resistance,” April 19]: It seems to me that in a state struggling with brain drain (young students leaving Vermont), we’d be working harder to keep them here. Instead, we close three campuses in the most economically challenged and rural parts of Vermont, where options are limited? If we want young people to leave, this is a great way to pack their bags. On top of that, many young people in the Northeast Kingdom can’t afford to leave. They depend on local colleges. Many can’t swing room and board, so they live at home while trying to better their lives by going to school. This option has now been taken away. The Northeast Kingdom seems to be the state’s ugly stepsister. We were dealt the scam of the Kingdom Con. We consistently have the highest unemployment

rate. And now we have young people without a local college. The forgotten area of the state that struggles to make do with what we’ve got just got yet another thing taken away. Good luck to us. Good luck to our kids. Donna Perron

BARTON

SAVE THE COLLEGES

[Re Off Message: “Proposal to Shutter VSC Campuses Hits Quick and Furious Resistance,” April 19]: Friday we heard the devastating news from the chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges System, Jeb Spaulding, that the State College Board of Trustees on Monday will likely recommend closing three college campuses in the Northeast Kingdom: Northern Vermont University, with campuses in Johnson and Lyndon, and Vermont Technical College. Apparently, this historic decision has already been decided behind closed doors. I am extremely disappointed the chancellor and the board are considering this unilateral approach without the mere suggestion of considering other options, both short-range and long-range, that could potentially save some or all components of these vital institutions. The chancellor was quoted as saying that this will be “a gut punch to the Northeast Kingdom.” You can recover from a gut punch fairly quickly. A more accurate metaphor is that they will be cutting the Northeast Kingdom off at the knees — an action from which the region will never be able to recover economically, socially or culturally. Do not forget, this region is already the most economically depressed in the state and struggles to keep young people and families as residents. I wonder what former governor George Aiken would think about this tragedy. More importantly, what would he do? Fletcher Potter III

SWANTON

EARTH TO AIR GUARD

Something jumped out at me after reading Courtney Lamdin’s article “Burlington Council Tells Guard to Cool Their Jets During Pandemic” [Off Message, April 13]. Where’s the outrage about the toxic levels of air pollution created by these F-35 fighter jets? Not only is the intense noise level completely unacceptable, the elevated air pollution level from four to eight jets flying overhead two to four times a day Tuesday through Friday is just as unacceptable.

Emissions in Vermont have increased by 16 percent in recent years, according to VTDigger.org. How much longer can we go on ignoring the deadly effects of air pollution? If we renege on our social responsibility to protect the Earth from ongoing environmental assaults, everything from the air we breathe to the water we drink and the food we eat will be endangered. Is this the world we want to leave to our children and the generations to come? Tell me, what good are all these sophisticated military-style weapons if there is no more Earth to defend? Alice Barbera

SOUTH BURLINGTON

OPEN UP

Our legislature is working hard to respond to COVID-19. Unfortunately, some of their actions inhibit our ability to understand and comment on their work. In order to respond quickly and safely, the Senate changed its rules to allow voting by video, as described in “Vermont Senate Passes Eviction Moratorium During Historic First Video Vote” [Off Message, April 10]. The Senate did not change its rules prohibiting new bills this late in the session. In order to pass the legislation, the Senate took existing bills, removed the content, inserted new content and had to use the original titles. (The Senate did this on March 24, too.) For example, the article mentions that one bill allows defendants to waive court appearances and allows remote notarizing of documents. That bill is S.114, “expungement of misdemeanor marijuana possession convictions.” The Senate removed the original expungement content and inserted the new provisions. The difficulty is that anyone looking for a bill on defendants’ rights or remote notarizing would not think to look at a bill on expunging marijuana convictions. And that is the problem. If one cannot find, then one can neither know nor comment. Another difficulty is that the services needed to follow our legislature place a cost on their users. The cost is: being forced to give personal information — to Google, YouTube and Zoom — to get access to our legislature. That cost is contrary to our democracy and is unacceptable to many. Our legislature can do both: respond to COVID-19 and give us better access. Thomas Weiss

MONTPELIER

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

arts news Pandemic Pastimes

A roundup of virtual ventures from Vermonters B Y PA M EL A P O LSTO N

CULTURE

COURTESY OF FLEMING MUSEUM OF ART

"Arts Ball" by Samuel Wood Gaylor

WATCH

The University of Vermont’s FLEMING MUSEUM OF ART has been busy behind its closed doors coming up with things to look at online. Thing one, the biggest endeavor (still in progress), is the online collections database, which allows viewers to search and explore more than 20,000 objects in the museum’s permanent holdings. Grab a bevvie of choice and settle in; this is an extensive tour. Thing two is called Fleming From Home, a quarantineera offering of new and archived videos. If you didn’t make it to “Let’s Have a Ball! Wood Gaylor and the New York Art Scene 1913-1936” before the museum shut down, you can enjoy a narrated virtual tour of the exhibition instead. In 22

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

voice-overs, curator of education ALICE BOONE interviews museum curator (and Wood scholar) ANDREA ROSEN, and their conversation provides enlightening deets about this charming artwork. This is just episode one, so stay tuned for more.

Childhood memories Are made everyday here Things to remember. townofweybridge.org

flemingmuseum.org

When MELISSA LOURIE, artistic director of the MIDDLEBURY ACTING COMPANY, had to reschedule the spring production of Outside Mullingar due to the pandemic, she didn’t take the disappointment sitting down. She turned to Hamlet. Lourie managed to put together a project that, though it didn’t pay actors, at least gave them something amusing to do — from the isolated comfort of their own homes. “I had the idea that it would be fun to take Hamlet’s soliloquy [‘To be or not to be,’ etc.], and give lines to 25 of the best actors in Vermont.” Each actor was to take a smartphone video of themself reciting their lines. “I told them to relate it to what we’re going through at this time,” Lourie noted. TIM O'LEARY produced a video from the individual recordings. Many of them took a wryly humorous approach to Hamlet’s angst. The inspired props include a cat, goats, a toddler, a blowtorch and, of course, face masks. Look for the video on YouTube: “Hamlet’s Hindsight is 20/20: To Be or Not to Be in the COVID Era.” middleburyactors.org

COURTESY OF JOHN CANNING

nother week, another spate of online offerings from Vermont’s incessantly creative sector. Seven Days has reported on many virtual activities, both in print and on our Live Culture blog, since the coronavirus pandemic began and everyone hunkered down. We’ve informed you about livestreamed music concerts and comedy shows on our blog series Almost There. And now, as we face month two of staying at home, it’s time to take a roundup approach for other stuff. Not all online experiences have the same intention, of course, and to that point we’re categorizing a few of them this week as “Watch,” “Do” and “Help.”

In a better world, poets would be considered “essential” workers and would even get paid. For now, we can look to the Town of Weybridge, which offers a “cure” for cabin fever: the third annual Haiku Contest. Founded by local writer JULIA ALVAREZ (whose novel Afterlife was recently released), the competition is open to all ages and is not restricted to Weybridge residents. Alvarez and fellow local author JAY PARINI are co-poet laureates of the Addison County town and will judge contest entries in adult and youth categories. You may remember from high school English class that a haiku is an elegant exercise in brevity: a 17-syllable, three-line poem with five syllables in the first and third lines and seven syllables in the second. The traditional Japanese format often describes images from nature. That’s not mandatory, but in a publicity release for the contest, Alvarez suggests, “In times like this, when many of us are quarantined, cooped up, and spending a lot more time in nature, we see, hear, touch, smell, taste things we might have missed before in our hurry and busyness.” A ceremony for contest winners usually takes place during a town picnic in July, but that is currently uncertain. The deadline, July 1, is also flexible, depending on the pandemic’s course. Haiku entries can be sent to georgebellerose@gmavt. net.Poems will be published periodically on the town’s website. For inspiration, here’s a haiku by 2019 youth winner ESRA ANZALI, then 11, titled “Rusty set of swings”:

Cartoonist Alison Bechdel

Are you a trivia night fanatic missing your fix? The VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY has got you covered, and in a most jeezum-crow way. Every Wednesday in April (OK, there are only two left) at 7 p.m., a Vermont-themed session boots up on Zoom. You can find the theme on the VHS website, but we’ll just go ahead and tell you here: This week’s is Vermont towns; on April 29, it’s famous Vermonters (e.g., cartoonist Alison Bechdel, pictured).

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"Scratch Happy" by Teresa Celemin, in the Studio Place Arts' Art to Go silent auction

COURTESY OF STUDIO PLACE ARTS

Now, more than ever, we need fact--based reporting to inform the people of Vermont. THE INSPIRED PROPS INCLUDE

A CAT, GOATS, A TODDLER, A BLOWTORCH AND, OF COURSE, FACE MASKS. It might not replace your raucous, competitive trivia team dredging up the names of ’80s child actors at your favorite watering hole, but, hey, you can still have a beer. Also, as the VHS helpfully points out, you don’t need pants to play. On the other hand, if you’re a parent with kids now home every single day, you might like to know that these trivia sessions are for all ages. Surely this counts as homeschooling? vermonthistory.org

HELP

In this time of social distancing, a typical benefit art auction is out of the question. STUDIO PLACE ARTS in Barre has found a creative solution. Of course, part of it involves the good old internet. The Art to Go silent auction invites viewers to look at artworks on SPA’s website and either make a bid or “buy now” for a designated price. One hundred percent of the proceeds will fund the center’s art programs. As of press time, more than 50 artworks were on offer, but this keeps evolving, so check back.

The auction continues through August 15, but if you purchase something outright and want to fetch it, SPA is offering curbside pickup. Otherwise winners will be notified the week of August 16. studioplacearts.com

Visual artists are often entreated to donate works for a cause. Montpelierbased JAMES SECOR chose to volunteer his stay-at-home time without being asked. That is, Secor has created an online store that’s offering batches of art postcards, the sales of which benefit the Vermont Foodbank. “The deal is, you get some postcards of my paintings, and the Vermont Foodbank gets 100% of the purchase price,” Secor writes in a recent newsletter. And, he notes, his partner has offered to match the sales, doubling his donation. Secor has reproduced five paintings as 4.5-by-5.5-inch postcards and also offers a variety pack. Each pack is $8. Of course, he surely wouldn’t mind if you also wanted to buy any of his colorful acrylic-on-board scenic paintings or still lifes, as well. A 2010 graduate of Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y., Secor has made a name for himself with a number of exhibitions around central Vermont; his show “#nomophobia” at Studio Place Arts in 2017 was one of Seven Days’ art critics' seven faves of the year. jamessecor.com

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arts news

ntil last month, Shelburne-based painter MISOO supported herself by teaching drawing classes at BURLINGTON CITY ARTS and the SHELBURNE CRAFT SCHOOL and working part time at FROG HOLLOW VERMONT CRAFT GALLERY on Church Street. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and all of her income disappeared practically overnight. After closing its doors on March 23, Frog Hollow kept its staff on payroll until the first week of April. As soon as she got her last check, Misoo applied for unemployment, an experience reminiscent of an absurdist Samuel Beckett play. For one entire day, she dialed the assistance number “like, 60 times an hour,” she said. The line was always busy. To help artists like Misoo, the VERMONT ARTS COUNCIL has begun offering no-stringsattached emergency relief grants in amounts up to $500. The first round, announced in mid-April, distributed $64,435 to 164 artists; a second round opened on April 22, funded by private donations and a $47,000 grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts. Meanwhile, BCA has rolled out its own emergency grant program, which will provide up to $500 in assistance to artists who have lost income due to the pandemic. Vermont ’s creative workforce comprises 9.3 percent of the state’s economy, accounting for some 40,000 jobs, according to the Vermont Arts Council. In the midst of a public health crisis that has gutted the arts, entertainment and service industries, those creative workers have found themselves in dire straits. Misoo received a $450 grant from the arts council, which doubled her earnings for the month. “It makes such a difference,” she said. “It helps pay for food. I’m not even thinking about buying art supplies right now.” The application process was a breeze compared to trying to connect with a human being at the Vermont Department of Labor, Misoo noted. After nearly two weeks of relentless dialing, she finally succeeded in getting her unemployment claim processed. Her benefits, she said, amounted

WE’RE SEEING THE

WAVES OF ECONOMIC DISTRESS. A M Y CUNNI NGHAM

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

Creative Economy

Emergency relief grants help Vermont artists pull through the pandemic BY C H E L S E A E D GAR

ART

to 45 percent of her monthly Frog Hollow salary. Misoo also was approved for a lowincome discount for her utility bills, but she said that her property manager refused to give her a break on rent. (“At least they can’t evict us,” she said.) AMY CUNNINGHAM, deputy director of the Vermont Arts Council, said that the response to the emergency relief program has been overwhelming, both in terms of volume and the heart-wrenching stories in every application. Six days after the form went live, 183 people had submitted requests for funding. “We’re seeing the waves of economic distress,” she explained. “We’re getting lots of applications from artists whose residencies and workshops have been canceled, which is a major loss of income. And perhaps they have a studio space in a collective arts center, which has also closed, so they can’t even access that to make their work. And many of them are bartenders and servers, and that’s been ripped out from under them, too.” Misoo paints large-format portraits of Asian women and domestic abuse survivors; the face-to-face intimacy of meeting subjects in person is a critical part of her process. “I go to their houses, they tell me their stories, and I take their photos,” she said. “I can’t do any of that now.” Instead, Misoo has turned the mirror on herself to create works for a show this July at the SOUTHERN VERMONT ARTS CENTER in Manchester. For now, the exhibition is still on the calendar. In the meantime, Misoo tries to stay grounded by focusing on the small joys of her new, schedulefree reality. “I’m enjoying the time with my daughter, and I’m really enjoying making my art,” she said. “I used to have so many deadlines, one thing after another. Now, I create with a more peaceful mind.” Contact: chelsea@sevendaysvt.com

INFO "Giant Asian Girl: Self Portrait 3" by Misoo

Learn more about, or donate to, the Vermont Arts Council’s emergency relief grants at vermontartscouncil.org and the BCA Artist Relief Fund at burlingtoncityarts.org.

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Listen Up

CULTURE

Three Vermont-based podcasts to get you through social distancing Like cattle and sugar maples, the rolling mountains of Vermont are rich in podcasts. The offerings span a wide variety of topics. A listener could fall down the rabbit hole of Rumble Strip, a unique collection of stories from independent producer ERICA HEILMAN. VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO offers “Brave Little State”and the kid-oriented “But Why?,” and the station just launched a new daily podcast called “The Frequency,” which airs 15-minute briefings on the news stories of the day. The “Vermont Dog Trainer” podcast could be useful if you’re thinking of teaching Spot some manners in your housebound spare time, and the VERMONT FOLKLIFE CENTER collects interviews from its archive into a monthly podcast called “VT Untapped.” Maybe you’re already a podcast fanatic, or maybe you’ve never dived into the medium. Either way, podcasts can be a way to experience Vermont in a time when we have little opportunity to get out and explore it. We picked three podcasts you might not know of that delve deeply into the state’s past, present and future and that interview intriguing characters. Ranging from quick work-break-length snacks to full-on audio feasts, they might help tide you over until we’re all free to interact again.

‘Before Your Time’

The VERMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY and VERMONT have HUMANITIES produced 20 episodes of “Before Your Time,” each based on an object from the Historical Society’s permanent collection. The episodes are blessedly well edited, with runtimes clocking in under 30 minutes, and the producers use interviews with direct sources whenever possible. In the most recent episode, “The Long Enough Trail,” host LOVEJOY DOLE takes

listeners on a brief history of Vermont’s Long Trail. The episode explores the trail’s creation — which was really more of an economic than an environmental endeavor — and then pivots to interviews with women who’d been pioneers for their gender on the trail. In an interview recorded in 1987, Catherine Robbins Clifford, then 86, recalled her time as one of the first three women to hike the entire length of the Long Trail in 1927. One of those women, Robbins said, set out on the trail because she “was being bothered by a man who wanted to marry her.” That episode also contains some interesting facts about porcupines, but we won’t give away too many spoilers here.

‘Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department Podcast’

You may be wanting to bug out and head for the hills right about now, but officials are advising that Vermonters stay home, or at least within 10 miles of their homes. The Long Trail and side trails on state lands are closed, and to discourage crowding, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department isn’t installing docks at any of its fishing access sites. Even so, hunting and fishing seasons are expected to proceed as planned. If you’re curious about hunting b u t d o n ’t k n ow w h e re t o s t a r t , the department ’s podcast is a great entry point. The first few episodes offer an accessible, friendly information source for newbies a n d ex p e r i e n c e d outdoorspeople alike. In one episode, called “Start With Squirrels and Ask for Help,” Vermont student MATT LACEY spoke about his experience getting into hunting as a newbie

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a few seasons ago and growing to love the sport. He also reminded listeners that hunting licenses and taxes on guns and ammunition are a huge source of funding for conservation and habitat management. The episode breaks down the basic “roadblocks” that stop adults from hunting, and even host TOM LACY admitted that he had always assumed “there’s people out there who know how to hunt, and then there’s people who don’t, and that’s that.” The two men went for a walk in the woods and talked about squirrel hunting — successes, failures and lessons learned along the way.

Some longer “Mudseason” episodes have been reedited and offered as bite-size versions of themselves, if you’re interested in a five-minute take on a topic. Most recently, the “Mudseason” team is covering the same topic that every other media outlet is exploring, in a series of short interviews with UVM students called “Coping With COVID.” You might feel burnt out on coronavirusrelated content, but these episodes offer short — fewer than six minutes — and touching insights into how students are thinking about and adapting to the current situation. In the inaugural episode of the new series, student producer LEAH KELLEHER called these stories “little packages of joy wrapped in stories of student perseverance.” “With all that’s going on in the world right now, it can be hard to find and hold onto joy,” Kelleher said. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there for us to seek out.”

PODCASTS CAN BE A WAY TO EXPERIENCE VERMONT

‘Mudseason’

IN A TIME WHEN WE HAVE LITTLE OPPORTUNITY TO GET OUT AND EXPLORE IT.

This podcast, funded by the University of Vermont’s Center for Research on Vermont, is produced by ELIZA GILES, who also teaches UVM students the ins and outs of podcasting. They typically interview UVM- or other Vermontbased experts on topics relevant to the state. Episodes include everything from historical looks at statewide debates, such as the struggle for civil unions for samesex couples and the fight against Walmart entering Vermont, to an interview with a man who’s making furniture out of mushrooms.

Contact: margaret@sevendaysvt.com

INFO Find podcasts on a podcast app or Spotify. Learn more at beforeyourtime.org, vtfishandwildlife.com and shows.acast.com/mudseason. SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

ookstores are not officially “essential” businesses in a pandemic — or so Gov. Phil Scott declared when he handed down his stay-at-home order on March 24. But locally owned, independent bookstores play a vital role in communities across Vermont. Not only do they sell books — gateways to learning, adventure and escape — they’re also gathering places. They contribute to cultural life by hosting readings and author events. Some offer cafés and cozy chairs. They often sell cards and other items that make thoughtful gifts. And bookstores are local businesses. They employ people. They pay taxes. They contribute to the local economy. Like many small businesses, Vermont’s indie bookstores are now struggling to survive. They’ve been battling Amazon and big-chain booksellers for at least 25 years. They’ve endured in part because of their brick-and-mortar stores — which at a time of social distancing are off-limits. So bookstore owners and managers have had to get creative. Read on for a roundup of how some of Vermont’s indie shops have adapted to a changing reality. And the next time you’re tempted to order a book on Amazon, buy it locally instead!

PHOENIX BOOKS Burlington, Essex, Rutland — phoenixbooks.biz Phone and online orders, curbside pickup, free domestic shipping A $30 annual membership in the Phoenix Book Club includes store discounts. Though bookstores are not deemed “essential,” Phoenix Burlington manager Tod Gross said the coronavirus crisis has shown him how much the store means to the communities it serves. He’s seeing lots of regular clientele, as well as new ones who are eager to buy local. And the customers are grateful — especially ones with young children. “I can see we’re essential to families who have kids at home right now,” Gross said. Gross loves helping customers ﬁnd just the right book. He noted that 26

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

Stay Home and Read Vermont’s indie bookstores offer pandemic page-turners

What Vermonters Are Reading Right Now According to Elizabeth Bluemle of Flying Pig: “Most people are asking for either real-life inspiring stories of strength and resilience or total escape reads. They also want puzzles!” • Chris Bohjahlian, The Red Lotus: A Novel • Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven, a 2014 novel about a postpandemic America, and her new novel The Glass Hotel • Julia Alvarez, Afterlife • Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile • Melissa Clark, Dinner in French: My Recipes by Way of France: A Cookbook

algorithms and search engines can reveal what other people bought, but they’re not good at making personalized recommendations. “That’s hard to replicate online,” he said. Also hard to replicate: local business owners who care about the community and their employees. Gross pointed out that the owners of Phoenix Books gave the staﬀ an additional four weeks of paid vacation to get through this crisis. “Compare

BRIDGESIDE BOOKS Waterbury — bookshop.org/shop/ bridgesidebooksvt Phone and online orders, shipping, curbside pickup and local delivery Owner Hiata Corduan laid oﬀ her staﬀ in March and has since become a one-woman recommendation engine. “I have texted and emailed photos of books/puzzles/stationery, and chosen birthday, baby and quarantine gifts for friends and customers who have trusted me with these careful choices,” she wrote in an email. Corduan has even set up the front windows of her store for “window shopping,” assisting customers by holding up puzzles, books and games to show what’s available. “Vanna White comes to mind,” she said. She has applied for an SBA Emergency Disaster Loan application. Still, Corduan is shrinking the size of her store to reduce overhead. “My landlord has been supportive and easy to work with in this project,” she said. “Fingers crossed for the SBA loan!”

CROW BOOKSHOP Burlington — crowbooks.com Online orders, free shipping The only bookstore on the Church Street Marketplace is temporarily closed to the public, but manager Jackie Hoy said she’s seen an increase in online orders over the past few weeks. Most in demand: “kids’ books and cookbooks, particularly bread-making books.”

FLYING PIG BOOKSTORE Shelburne — ﬂyingpigbooks.com Phone and online orders, shipping, curbside pickup, and free deliveries from Charlotte to Burlington

that with what Amazon is doing with their employees,” he said. The Seattle-based company has come under ﬁre for its rates of injuries among warehouse workers, and it’s currently being investigated by the National Labor Relations Board for allegedly violating employees’ rights to unionize. “Really what you’re doing when you’re buying local,” Gross said, “is that you’re helping your neighbors out.”

Flying Pig might be the only bookstore in Vermont with a drivethrough window. Owner Elizabeth Bluemle appears in a short Facebook video touting the service, to the tune of Melissa Etheridge’s “Come to My Window.” “We have been operating at a sprint ever since the pandemic hit,” Bluemle wrote in an email. “It was incredible how many changes we made to our procedures, and how quickly. Like every business, we have

P R O D U C E D B Y 7 D B R A N D S T U D I O — P A I D F O R B Y P O M E R L E A U R E A L E S TAT E

How can you help local businesses?

Restaurants, retailers and other businesses play a vital role in our community, and right now, they’re struggling.

Order from a local restaurant. Find Vermont restaurants offering takeout, delivery and curbside service at Seven Days’ new directory, updated daily: goodtogovermont.com.

Buy a gift card — or a hoodie. As a fundraiser for the store, Bear Pond Books is selling hooded sweatshirts that say, “Stay Home Read Books.”

Shop local online. Some Vermont retailers are still fulfilling orders through their websites and even offering discounts on in-state delivery.

Call a local store to get the latest info. Don’t just rely on online information or social media — pick up the phone. During the coronavirus chaos, many small businesses don’t have time to update their websites.

Pay a little extra to support a local retailer. Consider it an investment in your community. Think you found a better deal on Amazon? Ask yourself: When was the last time Amazon donated to local charities or sponsored local events?

What are you doing to break the Amazon habit? Share your story about buying local with this hashtag or by visiting sevendaysvt.com/savelocalvt. You’ll be entered to win a gift card to a local restaurant or store — extra credit for creativity! Dazzle us, and we’ll publish your contributions to inspire your neighbors.

#SaveLocalVT

Before you buy... THINK LOCAL • SHOP LOCAL • ACT LOCAL • SAVE LOCAL been pretzeling ourselves to ﬁnd best practices to keep our employees safe, keep the business sustainable, and support our customers.” The store’s website has seen a “huge surge” in orders, and a second website was set up through the indiesupporting startup Bookshop.org, primarily for out-of-state customers.

GALAXY BOOKSHOP Hardwick — galaxybookshop.com Phone and online orders, shipping and curbside pickup “Pivoting from operating as a Main Street retailer to becoming a mailorder business has been challenging,” co-owner Sandy Scott wrote in an

email, “but it’s forcing us to think creatively about how we reach out to our customers.” Scott is now posting book recommendation videos on Facebook and Instagram and has created a virtual tour that allows people to “walk” through the store. Galaxy has been part of Hardwick

for more than 31 years. It supports the community by donating to fundraisers and by working with teachers and librarians to encourage the love of reading. “We are one of Hardwick’s anchor businesses,” Scott said.

BEAR POND BOOKS Montpelier — bearpondbooks.com Online orders only, back-door pickup, free shipping on orders more than $20, Montpelier delivery Support the store by purchasing a “Stay Home Read Books” Bear Pond hoodie for $39.99. Orders due May 1. Co-owner Claire Benedict reports that business has been good. “Not like if we were open, but we’re keeping busy,” she wrote in an email. Bear Pond recently introduced a new service for young readers called Discovery Boxes. “Buy one for your favorite kid, and we’ll send a surprise box of books and activities to keep them busy,” she said.

BOXCAR & CABOOSE BOOKSTORE & CAFÉ St. Johnsbury — boxcarandcaboose.com Phone and online orders, shipping, and curbside pickup Buy a $100 gift certificate and the store will donate $15 to the Northeast Kingdom Community Action food shelf Owners Scott and Joelle Beck are no longer serving up espresso, but they’re fulfilling orders for books, cards and games. They’re happy to make recommendations, too. Scott said they’re selling a lot of fiction and children’s books. “At some point,” he said, “we’re going to get to the other side of this.” And if Vermonters value their indie bookstores, he added, they should support those stores now to insure their survival. ■

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A VIRTUAL TOWN HALL MEETING

Katherine Long

Navigating the Federal Stimulus Process

Friday, April 24, 12-1 pm

Caseworker, Office of U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy

Michael McClintock

burlingtonvt.gov/resources

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Site Coordinator, Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO)

WELCOME Mayor Miro Weinberger

Kelly Stoddard-Poor

MODERATOR Christine Curtis

Matt Thompson

Director of Outreach, AARP

Coordinator of Programs, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants/Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program

Community Development Specialist, CEDO/RRC

The RRC is here to help in response to COVID-19 Volunteer services

Unemployment, small business, food, housing, childcare, and property tax information

recovery@burlingtonvt.gov 28

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SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

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HACKIE

A VERMONT CABBIE’S REAR VIEW BY JERNIGAN PONTIAC

Here’s Mud in Your Eye

ake no mistake — I’m a city mouse, not a country mouse. I came of age in the Big Apple before moving to Vermont as a young adult, and I’ve called Burlington my home ever since. And, like the city mouse of Aesop’s fable, I find myself failing to grasp certain realities of the natural world that my country counterparts intuitively understand as simple aspects of daily life. Though small by national ranking, Burlington’s population of some 40,000 people makes the city the most populous in the state. By any standard, it’s also the most cosmopolitan and, well, citified. This brings to mind an old chestnut oft repeated by rural Vermonters regarding the Queen City (conjure up your best woodchuck accent): “The best thing about Burlington is that it’s so close to Vermont.” Every few years, as winter gives way to spring, I get a taxi fare that puts me face-to-face with a particular urban blind spot: the soupy reality that is mud season throughout the rural countryside. For all of March and April, you can tool around Burlington and its surrounding suburban communities without encountering a single dirt road. And with rare exceptions, any unpaved road you do run into is likely to be short in length, fairly level and well groomed. Mud season? What’s that? A social worker called on me to pick up a client, Marisa Dawe, at the hospital and transport her to the Hyde Park home of the client’s mother. As a rule, I operate on a need-to-know basis and never pry into the mental or physical condition of a customer. That said, though I’ve continued to operate my cab during this time of COVID-19, I have been declining any fares with folks who have tested positive for the disease. The social workers respect this and, upon

my inquiry, assured me that Marisa had been treated for an unrelated illness. At the hospital entrance, one of the brave and dedicated people who direct traffic and otherwise assist the arrival and discharge of patients helped Marisa into the rear seat of my minivan. It was not an easy task: the middle-aged woman was quite heavy and moved with great difficulty. Before getting under way, I looked over my shoulder and asked, “So, I’m taking you to Hyde Park, right?”

The road before me was dirt, though still hard packed at the onset. But like a canoeist staring ahead at the looming rapids, I could make out the muddy ruts just up ahead. And worse still, I could see that the road was hilly. I hit the mud like a champ. A Toyota Sienna minivan is a righteous vehicle, but it doesn’t exactly “jump like a Willys in four-wheel drive,” to quote the Grateful Dead. All my muddy skills immediately kicked in via muscle memory: shifting

ABOUT HALFWAY UP THE DRIVEWAY, THE PATH GREW STEEPER STILL,

AND MY WHEELS BEGAN TO SPIN FUTILELY.

“Yes, my mother said she’d take me in,” Marisa replied. She sounded beleaguered, beset with despair. “I have nowhere else to go.” “OK, well, I’ll get ya up there safe and sound. Just lemme know if you need anything.” On the ride up Route 15, I heard not a peep from the rear seat. Every 15 minutes or so, I snuck a peek at Marisa in the rearview mirror. She had a troubled look on her face but appeared physically comfortable in her seat. Before leaving for this pickup, I had checked Google maps for the address. (I get GPS on my cellphone, but service can be iffy in wide swaths of northern Vermont.) The thing about these digital route planners is, they don’t indicate unpaved roads. Or maybe they do, but I don’t know how to access the feature. Either way, I was taken aback when I made the final turn onto the mom’s road — and the GPS read 4.3 miles to my destination.

into a lower gear, slow and steady on the accelerator, avoiding the deepest ruts. At times, staring down a big incline in front of me, I felt certain I wouldn’t make it, but somehow I forged ahead. “Hey, Marisa,” I called out to my customer, “lemme know when we get close to the driveway, OK?” “Sure, about another mile to go,” she said. “It’s on the left.” When we got there, I stopped. The driveway was even steeper and much narrower than the road, and I couldn’t see any building. “How far up is the house?” I asked. “’Bout a quarter mile,” said Marisa. “Is anyone at home with a car who can pick you up down here?” “Nope, just my mom, and she don’t drive.” “OK, then. I’m gonna give it a shot. But if it becomes impassable, we’ll have to stop. Will you be good with walking whatever distance is left?”

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INFO Hackie is a twice-monthly column. To reach Jernigan, email hackie@sevendaysvt.com.

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“Sure,” Marisa replied, but I wasn’t very confident, should it come to that. It came to that. About halfway up the driveway, the path grew steeper still, and my wheels began to spin futilely. I placed the taxi in park, cut the engine and engaged the emergency brake. Social distancing be damned, I helped Marisa get out and, arm-in-arm, we began the trek up to the house. I glanced down and saw she wore only hospital socks, utterly insufficient for negotiating the cold and muddy conditions. After about 100 feet with still no house in sight, Marisa gave up. “My feet are wicked numb. I got the diabetes. I can’t go another step.” “OK, lemme go back to the taxi. I forgot my phone. We’ll figure out what to do. I promise I won’t abandon you.” Just as I reached the vehicle, a huge black pickup pulled to a stop just behind it. I could make out a young woman in the driver’s seat and an elderly woman (Marisa’s mother?) riding shotgun. The young woman popped out and said, “Did you drop off Auntie Marisa? I’m Janice, her grandniece. We’re so thankful!” After I explained the situation, Janice backed the pickup down the driveway to allow me to do the same. At the bottom, I asked her if the road was better if I took it north instead of the south. Chuckling, she replied, “Nope, if anything, it’s worse. It’s mud season, don’t ya know?” “Well, I sure as heck do now,” I said, shooting her my best city-mouse smile and, for good measure, a wink. m

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

4/17/20 2:15 PM

RETAIL THERAPY BY CAROLYN FOX

Garden Variety Seven horticultural products and where to buy them locally

COURTESY OF NEA ARENTZEN/@THESALTYGIRL

aise your hand if fears about the food supply chain during this pandemic have prompted you to sow a victory garden — or at least get a few herbs for your front stoop. You’re not alone. While we all stay home as much as possible to slow the spread of COVID-19, the curve of home gardeners is rising. As Deputy Agriculture Secretary Alyson Eastman said in a recent Senate committee meeting, seeds “are seeing heightened sales this year. More folks being home, they want to grow their own gardens.” (See Jordan Barry’s related story, “Victory for Gardening,” on page 44.) But when “nonessential” stores have been shuttered, where to buy those seeds and supplies? That’s the focus of this installment of Retail Therapy, a weekly guide to shopping local during the coronavirus crisis. Many garden centers, nurseries and greenhouses are still operating for delivery or curbside pickup. They may not all have easily browsable online inventories, but they’re stocked (and restocking) as best they can. Since everyone’s garden is different, call your local outlet to see whether it has the plants and supplies you need. And read on for a variety of garden gear anyone could use. Small businesses are facing a great deal of uncertainty during this shutdown, and your purchases help to ensure their survival. “Burlington has risen up to support us,” said Jana Qualey, owner of College Street’s Home & Garden Vermont. “I feel confident that, when the time comes, we will be able to open our doors because of the support of the community.” If you don’t see your favorite retailer below, seek them out; this list is by no means comprehensive.

BUSINESS

VEGETABLE GARDENING FOR DUMMIES

Just getting into gardening? There’s a lot to learn, from soil and sun to crop selection and pest management. If 30

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

COMPOST TEA

Is your soil sending out SOS signals? Pour it a cup of beneficial Compost Tea, an all-natural plant health booster made by SOS for Your Soil and sold by Hinesburg’s Vermont Wildflower Farm. The fast-acting nutrient contains microorganisms that work to revive suffering soil, increase p l a n t g row t h , and make plants more resistant to pests and disease. Whatever you’re nurturing, this is helpful to have on hand. Order at vermontwild flowerfarm.com. ALSO TRY: Vermont Compost Company’s Compost Plus, from Red Wagon Plants (redwagonplants.com) in Hinesburg. HOW TO BUY:

Maker Skirt

you’ve got questions, dumb or otherwise, Vegetable Gardening for Dummies has answers. The hands-on guidebook by local gardening guru Charlie Nardozzi is sold through Shelburne’s Flying Pig Bookstore. Dig into nearly 400 pages of helpful illustrations and how-to techniques for planning and growing a beginner’s veggie garden. Order at flyingpigbooks.com for shipping, local delivery or curbside pickup. ALSO TRY: Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, a kids’ book by Essex, N.Y., author Kate Messner. Available from Phoenix Books (phoenixbooks.biz), with locations in Essex, Burlington and Rutland. HOW TO BUY:

MUCKSTER SHOES

Though we’re stuck at home, we can still #MuckTogether — that’s a current hashtag of the Original Muck Boot Company, which fashions waterproof footwear to withstand a Vermont mud season. So, for trodding through dewy grass or damp dirt in your garden, pull on a pair of Mucksters, sold by Vermont Gear/Farm-Way in Bradford. The comfy shoes offer high traction for slippery situations, rubber outsoles for easy cleaning, and breathable lining to keep your little piggies nice and dry. HOW TO BUY: Order at vermontgear.com.

Waterproof clogs from Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel (lennyshoe.com), with locations in Barre, St. Albans and Williston. ALSO TRY:

SELF-WATERING HERB PLANTER

Not everyone was born with a green thumb. Luckily, self-watering herb planters promise to “take the guesswork out of gardening.” Sold by Common Deer in Burlington, this kit includes a sleek glass jar and everything needed to grow organic basil, cilantro or mint for your kitchen. Let the passive hydroponic system do the watering for you. Maybe next year you’ll be ready to sow your own seeds. HOW TO BUY: Order at commondeer.com for shipping or local delivery. ALSO TRY: Seed kits from Burlington’s Homeport (homeportonline.com).

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SUN HAT

A sun hat is no replacement for sunscreen — SPF up, people! — but a nice lightweight bucket hat can provide welcome shade for those long, sunny days ahead in the garden. (They’re coming, we promise.) The Arc’teryx Sinsola Hat, sold by Burlington’s Skirack, is air permeable, offers ultraviolet protection and compresses small enough to fit comfortably into your pocket. HOW TO BUY: Order at skirack.com for free

local shipping or curbside pickup. ALSO TRY: Packable straw haw from Orvis (orvis.com) in Manchester.

MAKER SKIRT

-ONLINE ONLY!ALSO TRY: Find gardening tools at Williston’s Village Hardware (willistonvillagehardware.com).

NITRILE GLOVES

Gardening is inherently “dirty” work — but that doesn’t mean your hands should suffer. These nitrile gloves, available at Gardener’s Supply locations in Burlington and Williston, are lightweight but tough enough to fend off thorns and twigs. Best of all, you can feel good about where your money is going: Gardener’s Supply donates 8 percent of company profits to “programs and organizations that are using gardening to improve the world.”

For hauling around a trowel, gloves and perhaps the occasional freshly harvested cucumber, Tove Ohlander’s Maker Skirt blends form and function beautifully. The Burlington designer, artist and entrepreneur has developed a fair-trade, organic, sustainably produced

wraparound skirt with multiple pockets and a tool loop — “for folks to feel well dressed, protected, and prepared,” she notes on her website, Tove by Design. For more coverage, check out her new Farm Apron Dress, with a bib and a tulip-shaped pocket, developed with Emily von Trapp of Waitsfield’s von Trapp Flowers. HOW TO BUY: Order at tovebydesign.com or

Burlington’s Home & Garden Vermont (homeandgardenvermont.com) for shipping, free local delivery or curbside pickup.

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HOW TO BUY: Order at gardeners.com.

ALSO TRY: Donate to the Northeast Organic

Farming Association of Vermont’s COVID Response Fund (nofavt.org) to support farmers and farm shares for low-income and vulnerable Vermonters.

INFO Retail Therapy is a column about shopping local in the coronavirus era. Got a product or store suggestion? Email carolyn@ sevendaysvt.com.

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SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

4/20/20 5:23 PM

PHOTOS: JAMES BUCK

Home

SICK

Everyone in a Burlington duplex battled the coronavirus — and lived to tell the tale B Y COURT NEY L AMDIN

The Downes family

ife was still normal for Felix and Kermit Downes when the fraternal twins turned 5 on March 3. The boys celebrated at home, a three-story Victorian duplex on Burlington’s Howard Street. They had cheese fondue for dinner and two cakes for dessert — double chocolate and lemon meringue, both with sprinkles. Their grandmother, Sharon, who lives in the downstairs apartment, watched them blow out their birthday candles. Four days later and more than 100 miles away, the first Vermonter was diagnosed with the coronavirus. Not long after, the boys’ preschool closed, and both their parents started working from home. The twins stopped visiting their “Mimi,” knowing that a COVID-19 diagnosis for the 81-year-old, four-time cancer survivor could prove fatal. To avoid the virus, the boys’ parents, Keith and Michelle, followed the guidelines recommended by experts and took self-isolation seriously. They canceled plans with friends and only brought the boys outside to visit the playground — until that closed, 32

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

too. Though state officials allowed restaurants to offer food delivery and takeout, the family cooked all their own meals at home. The Downes did everything right, and then everything went wrong. All five members of the family and Sharon’s roommate, Chris, contracted the virus, turning their germfree fortress into a coronavirus hotbed. While everyone in the Downes household is expected to recover, their experience shows how quickly the virus can spread under one roof, ravage the inhabitants’ physical and mental health, and strain familial bonds. “One of my initial reactions … was just frustration and anger at not having control over it and feeling like what we had done didn’t matter,” Michelle said. “But it did. It [was] all we could do.”

Watch a special video interview with the Downes family at sevendaysvt.com. Curious about what it’s like living with COVID-19? Submit a question at sevendaysvt.com, then tune in at 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 23, as panelists Michelle Downes, state epidemiologist Patsy Kelso and Dr. Jan Carney of the UVM Larner College of Medicine answer them on the Seven Days Facebook Live page.

The dominoes began to fall when Chris, who asked to be identified only by his first name, developed flu-like symptoms on March 24. That day, Michelle went downstairs to ask whether Sharon and Chris needed anything from the grocery store. A few days later, Sharon got a fever, though she didn’t tell her son, Keith, for about 10 days. On March 28, Keith returned from a family hike up Snake Mountain more tired than he expected to be after such a short trek. The next day, chills and a fever crept in. The virus’ signature dry cough rattled his chest for weeks. As Keith got sick, so did his wife. Michelle came down with a splitting headache and couldn’t take full breaths. Anxious and afraid, she lay down and told Keith to check on her to make sure she was still breathing. Despite their severe symptoms, Michelle, Keith and Chris were all told that they didn’t qualify for a coronavirus test, even though the Vermont Department of Health had recently relaxed its testing protocols. Keith was frustrated, he said, but not with state health officials. “The national government has been negligent,” he said, adding that Vermont officials “were doing the best with what they were dealt.” Meanwhile, the virus kept spreading in the Downes’ house. By April 2, the twins were knocked down by fatigue. The next day, as Chris’ condition worsened after more than a week of illness, he ended up in the hospital. He tested positive for COVID19 on April 6. With a confirmed case in the Downes household, doctors referred Keith and Sharon for a drive-up nasal swab test at the Essex Junction fairgrounds. By April 11, the results were back: Mother and son were both coronavirus-positive. Michelle’s doctor told her she didn’t need a test, since she was undoubtedly infected, too. The Downes assumed that both Kermit and Felix had COVID-19, though the twins weren’t tested, either. Nearly 1 million Americans have tested positive for COVID-19, including more than 800 in Vermont; 40 people in the state have died. The Vermont Department of Health is not tracking the number of households with multiple COVID-19 cases, but it’s well known that the virus spreads quickly in close quarters. The disease has killed nearly 20 residents of Vermont nursing homes and has infected dozens more at a state prison. “Some respiratory viruses spread more easily than others, and unfortunately this one spreads pretty efficiently between people,” said Patsy Kelso, the state

Keith Downes

Sharon Downes

I THOUGHT IF SHE GOT IT,

THERE WAS A REASONABLE CHANCE SHE COULD DIE. KEITH DO W NE S

epidemiologist with the Vermont Department of Health. At the Downes’ duplex, the two units share a fenced-in yard but have separate entrances. Sharon and Chris live in a 1,000-square-foot apartment downstairs, where they share a bathroom, kitchen and living room, high-touch places where germs thrive. Those conditions made it difficult for the roommates to avoid cross-contamination. Keith, Michelle and the twins live upstairs, in a three-bedroom, two-bath

unit of about 1,440 square feet. Even with a spare bedroom, the adults decided there was no hope of trying to outrun the virus. “We were like, ‘We’re just all going to get it,’” Michelle said, “‘and we’re all going to be fine.’” Despite toughing it out in the same building, their individual experiences with COVID-19 would be very, very different.

A Dad Finally Slows Down

A serene beach vacation would be absolute hell for someone like Keith Downes. After he and Michelle married in 2010, the newlyweds honeymooned in Nepal, where they climbed a 20,000-foot mountain and explored the remote wilderness. He’s run marathons and was on the crew team in college and graduate school. Keith has slowed down since having kids, but even at 50, he loathes sitting still. For him, having the coronavirus was akin

to being shipwrecked on the sandy shores of Bermuda. But instead of a beach, he was confined to his couch. “I do not like to sit around the house,” Keith said. But that’s all he’s done since March 11, when his job as an energy-efficiency consultant at Burlington-based Guidehouse went remote. And then, two weeks later, he got sick. It started with fever and chills, not unlike the seasonal flu. The symptoms waned after three days but then boomeranged back with a vengeance. For a week, Keith was so tired that he could barely leave the couch. If he tried to stand up, he’d collapse into a coughing fit that left him gasping for air. He ate cough drops like candy but had no appetite for real food. He lost 15 pounds. At the same time, Keith worried about his mother downstairs. After Sharon was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, her voice box was removed. She breathes through a hole in her neck and communicates primarily by writing messages on paper. Her roommate helps her make phone calls. “If she felt as sick as I did, with her age and health condition, she’d be in the hospital,” Keith said, adding, “I thought if she got it, there was a reasonable chance she could die.” Indeed, about 80 percent of coronavirus fatalities in the United States have been among adults age 65 and up, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Older people with underlying medical conditions, such as Sharon, are at higher risk. Keith also knew that his mother wouldn’t take the threat seriously. She’s fiercely independent and doesn’t always take direction well. For instance, Michelle will ask her not to feed the twins sugary foods before dinner; Sharon will do it anyway. Or, as Keith tells it, Sharon ignored signs of throat cancer for so long that the disease was too advanced for radiation therapy to be effective. Keith says his mom’s laissez-faire attitude is “a virtue and a burden.” He’s taken to watching her movements closely, like a parent waiting for a teenager who missed curfew. He was particularly annoyed when Sharon drove a very symptomatic Chris to the hospital, even though Keith insisted it was safer for him to be in such close proximity. But for all of Keith’s worries, his mom was able to beat back the virus, handily. “She looks better than she normally does,” Keith said dryly.

HOME SICK SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

» P.34 33

watch a movie in the living room. She’s met with confused, if not elated, looks. “Sometimes, I kind of wish they weren’t so asymptomatic and were a little more tired,” Keith said with a laugh. Just like their mom and dad, the pintsize pair has oscillated between joy and sorrow during this new age of the coronavirus. The boys were sad when the playgrounds closed but even sadder when they thought about their grandmother getting sick and going to the hospital. “Mimi is an old person, and old persons don’t usually beat it, but she might because she’s doing so well,” Felix said. “She’s doing good.” How was she feeling now? “Well, we haven’t gone to Mimi’s yet [today], but we could, right now,” Felix said, considering. “That’s because she already had the coronavirus,” Kermit said. Added Felix, with enthusiasm: “And we do, too!”

Home Sick « P.33 ‘Mimi’ Shrugs Off Illness — Again

Sharon Downes may not be able to speak, but she gets her point across well enough with pen and paper. “Does no good to worry,” Sharon wrote in a spiral notebook during a Zoom interview last week. She displayed the succinct message to the camera: “I took precautions.” Sharon sat at her dining room table while Keith helped facilitate the stilted exchange. She listened intently, looking into the camera. Depending on the query, she’d shrug or smirk as she crafted her response, licking her thumb to turn to a fresh sheet. The answers were usually no more than a few words. Sharon thinks her roommate likely brought the virus home, but she can’t be sure whether she caught it from Chris or the runner who coughed on her when she was out for a walk one day. Either way, Sharon only came down with a mild case. “Not too bad,” Sharon wrote. “Was more annoyed that I was tired.” Perhaps that’s an unsurprising take for someone who’s beaten cancer four times. With that perspective, a little pandemic doesn’t seem so scary. “Attitude helps,” Sharon wrote. “I’ve had a very good life.” Before she moved to Vermont, Sharon and her late husband, Howard, lived in Miami, Fla. They adopted Keith when he was only weeks old. Sharon worked as a school teacher and then later with Howard, a landlord who leased small office spaces to startups. She used to take flying lessons, but Keith couldn’t recall that she ever piloted a plane. After Howard died in 2000, Keith dropped out of grad school and took over caring for his parents’ second home in Stowe. He later moved to Burlington and bought the Howard Street duplex in 2005, two years before he met Michelle. While Sharon was visiting Vermont in 2014, Keith noticed his mom’s voice sounded different, and she had a bad cough. The symptoms heralded the cancer that would eventually steal Sharon’s voice. In 2015, she had a laryngectomy and moved into Keith and Michelle’s downstairs apartment. Sharon signed up for HomeShare Vermont, a program that matches roommates based on compatibility. Chris, who moved in about a year ago, pays an affordable rent in exchange for helping Sharon make phone calls. When she got sick with the coronavirus, her everyday activities became harder or impossible to do. After getting 34

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

A Mom Undone

Kermit and Felix Downes

dressed in the morning, she would need to recharge on the couch. She had to postpone her physical therapy regimen, she said, displaying hand weights and colorful exercise bands for the camera. Doctors told the Downes family that they can leave the house once everyone is symptom-free for three days. Sharon can’t wait. She misses grocery shopping. But she’s also enjoyed the time she’s spent with family. Because they all had the virus, they could dispense with social distancing; they even celebrated Easter together. Felix and Kermit hunted eggs at her apartment, and they played games and ate dinner together. “Love having the twins,” Sharon wrote, smiling. “They are a lot of fun.”

The COVID Kids

Kermit and Felix Downes aren’t used to seeing their dad lie down all day. The engineer was normally busy, busy at work, but he’d recently been super tired. That actually wasn’t so bad, as far as the twins were concerned. “I snuggled with my dad a lot,” Kermit said, bouncing on his mother’s knee during a Zoom interview from their kitchen table. Health experts believe children can better fight off the coronavirus than adults, though kids can still catch and spread it. Of the two blond-headed boys, Kermit showed more symptoms. He napped deeply, coughed at night and, as Felix

described in an awestruck tone, “Kermit even throwed up in his bed!” The virus also sapped Kermit of his typical competitive energy. Instead of racing Felix outside in the yard one afternoon, Kermit wanted to play the coach. It was a strange turn for the kid who always angles to be out front. But enough about Kermit. “What about me?” Felix asked during the video interview, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. “That wasn’t normal when I was just laying in my bed every day.” Aside from being sick, the virus changed the twins’ normal routine. Their preschool, Stepping Stones Children’s Center, closed in mid-March — so long ago that Felix says he can’t remember what his classroom looks like. He misses his teachers and especially playing soccer with his friend Emmett, who, Felix admitted begrudgingly, usually wins. The brothers have been brushing up on their skills in the backyard, preparing for a rematch. “We’re gonna be really good players, because we’re playing soccer a lot,” said Felix, eyes wide. They’ve also been getting more screen time than they’re usually allowed. Michelle has taken to plopping the twins in front of the computer for virtual yoga classes. Or, when she needs a respite from their boundless energy, which is fully back after a few days’ lull, she bends her own rules and lets the boys have a snack and

Michelle Downes likes to have everything in order. She makes an expert grocery list. When the family vacations, Michelle can squeeze luggage in a small sedan like she’s playing Tetris. The 39-year-old makes plans and executes them — skills she puts to use as a mom and as a project manager for IBM, where she’s worked since 2003. The coronavirus, though, upended Michelle’s organizational tendencies and shattered her family’s normal routine. She and Keith typically split household duties 50-50: One parent walks the kids to preschool each morning, and the other picks them up. Michelle starts the laundry, and Keith folds the clothes. They both cook meals. Michelle already worked from home, so that was no change, but she was used to a quiet home office with few interruptions. Not anymore. The kids were around 24-7. When Keith was at his sickest, Michelle watched Kermit and Felix for 14 hours a day, queuing up Winnie the Pooh to entertain them while she logged onto a work conference call. She couldn’t toss the twins downstairs to their grandmother’s apartment, nor could she unload them on Keith’s cousin, who would sometimes babysit before social distancing became a thing. And, of course, Michelle was sick. “It wrecked me,” she said. “I was an emotional disaster.” Nothing was simple anymore. The Downes had stocked up on food March 24, but they were running low on supplies after two weeks in quarantine. Michelle spent an hour scouring the virtual shelves in a local grocery store’s online shopping portal but then couldn’t schedule a curbside pickup. Another store’s service was

PHOTOS: JAMES BUCK

IT WRECKED ME.

I WAS AN EMOTIONAL DISASTER. MIC H E L L E D O W NE S

backlogged for two weeks, so Michelle asked if she could cut the line, seeing as her entire household was sick. The answer was no. “To lose control of that … was really overwhelming,” Michelle said, adding that a friend eventually brought groceries to their house. “Having food is a basic need, and so it just felt like so much was falling apart for us.” In a way, it was. The Downes recognize that they’ve been spared the worst during the pandemic: They haven’t lost income; they don’t work on the front lines; they’re all getting better. But Michelle wasn’t prepared for the isolation that the coronavirus causes, even when trapped in a house with three other people. In her darkest place, Michelle craved what she couldn’t have: physical contact with friends and family, and a confidant in Keith. “It wasn’t that he was completely unavailable,” she said, “but our relationship was suffering.” Keith and Michelle met in 2007 through a mutual friend. Michelle eventually moved to an apartment around the corner from Keith’s house, and soon enough, she spent more time there than at her own place. During their quarantine, the couple’s bond began to fray. Michelle started to distance herself from Keith. Everything he did annoyed her, from how he parented the twins to the way he ate dinner. Michelle

started questioning whether they ever had anything in common, until it dawned on her that her aggravation was a symptom of fear. She was afraid her husband might die. “It’s not a nice thing to think, but just recognizing it made it OK to feel that way,” Michelle said. As they were healing from the coronavirus, the couple started healing their relationship. They carved out time for one another; they watched “GLOW” on Netflix after the kids were asleep. And Michelle worked on her self-care by doing yoga and having virtual cocktails with friends. Michelle realized that her anxiety paralleled how she had felt when her mother-in-law was diagnosed with throat cancer. Michelle, Keith and their newborn twins were with Sharon when the doctor explained that she’d lose her voice. “She was just deadpan, fine, and I’m like bawling my ass off,” Michelle recalled. The same dynamic holds today, she added: “I’m overprotective of her, and she’s more fine than I am.” Michelle knows her family was right to take precautions against the coronavirus, but in hindsight, she envies her mother-inlaw’s carefree approach. “I do wish I had worried less,” Michelle said. Late last week, Michelle was relieved of at least one worry. The grocery store called. A package of food would be on the Downes’ doorstep the next morning.

The Renter’s Recovery

The view wasn’t great from Chris’ hotel room, but he had no complaints. For about a week, the fiftysomething was holed up on the fourth floor at the Holiday Inn in South Burlington, which overlooks Interstate 89. The hotel has been transformed into a 150-bed recovery center for coronavirus patients with no suitable place to self-isolate. Apparently, Chris fit the bill. All of his family lives out West, where he was born and raised. Post-high school graduation, Chris served two terms in the Air Force between 1985 and 1992 before going to college and graduate school. In 2017, he was offered a spot teaching executive leadership courses at Champlain College. “I thought, Wow, Vermont. I’ve heard of Norman Rockwell, so let me see what it’s like to live in New England,” Chris said. He quickly learned that rent isn’t cheap, so he signed up for HomeShare. He also switched jobs and took a position as a social worker with a company that contracts with the Vermont National Guard. He helps service members access financial and marriage counseling, among other programs. Chris was putting in normal shifts until he was directed to telework on March 23. He started sneezing the next day. Even though he figured it was just allergies, he stayed mostly in his room,

coming out only to use the kitchen and bathroom he shared with Sharon. Then came the fever, chills, and complete loss of taste and smell. At first, Chris was told he didn’t qualify for a coronavirus test. But his symptoms progressively worsened, and doctors at the White River Junction VA Medical Center decided that he needed to be tested and, ultimately, admitted for treatment. After four days in a negative pressure room, Chris was discharged to a hotel designated for coronavirus recovery. Just as Chris thought he was getting better, the virus roared back, igniting a burning sensation in his chest. His arms hurt, and he felt like he was suffocating. What the hell is happening here? Chris recalled thinking. He went to the University of Vermont Medical Center emergency room and ended up staying for four days. This time, doctors put him on oxygen. “You feel like your life is on a razor’s edge,” Chris said. A hospital is “not a place to aspire to be for any length of time.” As the Downes family healed together, Chris recovered in a hospital bed. Being treated for COVID-19 is a lonely experience, Chris said, but it helped that he had doctors and nurses who cheered him on daily. “You’re not alone,” they told him. “There’s a better day.” The medical staff are his heroes, he says. Without that kind of support, “I could see how many people just succumb and just die off,” Chris said. “It does become a psychological battle, because you do think, Wow, am I ever gonna get over this?” It seems like he will. Chris has been coughing less and less, and he hasn’t had a fever for a few days. Now that he can taste and smell again, Chris reported that the catered hotel lunches were actually quite good. It was quiet there, too. He didn’t see any other patients, and he only heard workers softly padding down the hallway, making their rounds. Chris was grateful that doctors referred him to quarantine and rest there, even though the Downeses were already sick. Now that he’s nearly symptom-free, he left the hotel and returned home on Monday evening. While Chris was laid up in bed, his brother, whom he hadn’t spoken with in years, called to check in. Chris confessed he was frightened that maybe he’d beaten back the virus only for it to return. Even now, when he feels so close to being well again, Chris is skeptical that he’s banished COVID-19 for good. “It’s just a wicked little virus,” he said. “I hope it’s finally all over.” m Contact: courtney@sevendaysvt.com SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

ALL

TOGETHER NOW Community rallies to support COVID-19 response

n mid-March, as it became clear that the novel coronavirus and its economic fallout were going to hit Vermont hard, the leaders of the state’s social service agencies began to sound the alarm.

On Monday, March 16, Feeding Grant recipients so far have Chittenden, which runs Vermont’s included Feeding Chittenden and largest food shelf, distributed groceries Age Well, which operates Vermont’s to 282 people — a sudden 30 percent largest Meals on Wheels program. spike in demand. Afterward, director The service delivers nutritious meals Rob Meehan told Seven Days reporter to homebound seniors. In a statement Kevin McCallum that the organization announcing the fund’s first round of was “not OK.” grants, Bridges pointed out that “these “We’re trying to figure out how we’re organizations already have great readigoing to meet the growing need,” ness for rapid scaling and adjusting to said Meehan. “We the new demands of were already facing a service in a time of deficit and, when this social distancing and happened, we went, great uncertainty.” ‘Oh, my God. We The news isn’t all need to ask for help bad. For example, financially.’” when more than 100 A week later, help Meals on Wheels was on the way. volunteers — many of The United Way of them seniors themNorthwest Vermont selves — stepped Jesse Bridges, started a COVID-19 down because of United Response the pandemic, Age United Way of Fund to raise the Well, in partnership Northwest Vemont funds needed to with the United Way, support organizawas able to recruit tions like Feeding Chitten300 new volunteers to help den. Burlington Mayor Miro manage the increase in Weinberger reached out demand for services. to local philanthropists and Chris Moldovan of Age secured $85,000 in donations Well, who oversees the Meals from major donors, including the on Wheels program, appeared Pomerleau family. in Eva Sollberger’s recent video “Stuck The collaboration kicked off a fund- in Vermont: Communities Come raising push that has so far raised more Together in the Pandemic.” “There’s than $220,000 from local companies, absolutely a silver lining,” she told Sollphilanthropists and everyday people berger. “People do love each other and looking for a way to help. The benefi- are taking care of each other and want ciaries: organizations serving the to do what’s right.” area’s most vulnerable residents. Jesse That said, Bridges of the United Way Bridges, CEO of the United Way of stressed that what these organizaNorthwest Vermont, has emphasized tions really need right now is financial the importance of “getting dollars in support. “We know a lot of people the hands of people on the ground want to volunteer,” he said. “But giving doing the work.” now is incredibly important.” n

WE KNOW A LOT OF PEOPLE WANT TO VOLUNTEER. BUT GIVING NOW IS INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT.

HOW TO HELP Give to the United Way’s COVID-19 Response Fund, and learn more about how to give — and get — assistance at unitedwaynwvt.org/covid19-community-response. All contributions to the fund will be matched dollar for dollar (up to $25,000), thanks to a second gift from the Pomerleau family. 36

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

P R O D U C E D B Y 7 D B R A N D S T U D I O — P A I D F O R B Y P O M E R L E A U R E A L E S TAT E

COVID-19 RESPONSE FUND RECIPIENTS Food and Food Access • Age Well/Meals on Wheels • CIDER (Champlain Islanders Developing Essential Resources) • CVOEO (Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity)/Feeding Chittenden/Franklin Northwest Foods

LOCAL NEEDS, BY THE NUMBERS

600

451

That’s how many boxes of groceries Feeding Chittenden’s Food Shelf is boxing up for curbside pickup each week.

The number of new Meals on Wheels clients who have enrolled since March 10 — a 25 percent increase.

1,200+

That’s how many to-go breakfasts Feeding Chittenden’s Morning Meal Program currently serves daily.

That’s how many Meals on Wheels clients rely on daily delivery of nutritious food. The number includes 156 veterans.

250

40%

This many households get grocery deliveries each month from the Homebound Delivery Program.

That’s the size of the increase in Meals on Wheels services forecast to be needed over the next six months.

1,200

Outreach • Champlain Community Services • Franklin County Home Health and Hospice • University of Vermont Home Health and Hospice Housing • Chittenden County Homeless Alliance • Franklin County Continuum of Care Shelter • ANEW Place • COTS (Committee on Temporary Shelter) • Samaritan House • Spectrum Parent Child Centers • Family Room • LUND • Milton Family Community Center • Northwestern Counseling and Support Services THIS ARTICLE WAS COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR BY:

638K

That’s how many nutritious meals the Community Kitchen Academy is preparing daily for those experiencing homelessness.

That’s how much it will cost to provide additional meal production, delivery and storage to new Meals on Wheels clients.

From Feeding Chittenden

From Age Well/Meals on Wheels SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

An Early Goodbye Seniors close out school apart from their friends B Y S A LLY POL L AK

Natalie Bates

n her locker at Bellows Free Academy, Fairfax, senior Natalie Bates left a few pens and pencils and some notepads — things she didn’t pack up on March 17, the last day she attended school. “I think we all assumed that we were going to go back to school in April, so I didn’t do anything extra special when I said goodbye to my friends,” Bates said in a telephone conversation last week. “I just said, ‘See you in a little while.’ “If I had known we weren’t going back,” Bates added, “I would’ve done something a little extra to remember everyone.” She might’ve gone out to lunch one more time with her friends, or given them a hug instead of waving goodbye. But lunch dates and hugging are a thing of the past in this spring of social distancing. Traditional school is, too. Bates and her classmates — and thousands of other students in Vermont — were told not to return to school starting March 18, part of the state’s effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Gov. Phil Scott’s directive initially suggested that schools could reopen on April 6. But on 38

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

Kiana Labor

Sage DeCell

March 26, he announced that they would remain closed through the academic year. The abrupt and unexpected end of the school year means high school seniors — more than 5,000 in the state, according to 2018-19 data — are completing school remotely and apart from their friends. They could miss out on events and traditions that typically culminate a K-12 school career. The BFA Fairfax prom, for example, which was to be held at Champlain College, was canceled. The pinnacle occasion, graduation, is scheduled for June 13 in Fairfax. The outdoor graduation and the Fourth of July celebration are the two largest annual community gatherings in the Franklin County town, according to high school principal John Tague. “I think it’s bigger than just the students,” he said. “It’s a time to celebrate for the families, for the community. Kids got on the bus in kindergarten, and now here we are at the end of it. It’s marking a milestone.” Graduation and other year-end plans are on hold across the state until May 8,

KIDS GOT ON THE BUS IN KINDERGARTEN,

AND NOW HERE WE ARE AT THE END OF IT. J O H N TAGUE

when the Agency of Education will issue graduation guidelines to school districts. The department told Seven Days last week that it was “premature to forecast” what the recommendations will be. In Fairfax, senior Sage DeCell said graduation is the one thing she’s pictured herself doing since she started school. “I’ve been wanting that moment of accepting that diploma,” DeCell said. “It would really crush me if we had to do it virtually.” Tague said he has communicated with the 61 seniors in the class of 2020 that BFA Fairfax will celebrate their graduation — even though he’s unsure what form it will take. “There will be celebrations, and the

celebrations will be memorable, given the personality of the class and the situation we’re in,” the principal said. “They’re just a really nice group of kids; they seem to get along with each other, and they’ve endured a lot of changes over their time in school.” Tague noted in particular that this class will be the first to graduate with educational standards based on proficiencies rather than traditional letter grades. Since learning became remote, the priority for educators has been connecting with students, Tague said: “We want to make sure that they know we’re here.” Students and teachers are on spring vacation this week. For seniors, the weeks that follow are typically a time to wind down and reflect, he noted. “After this April break, seniors are pretty much done,” Tague said. “They can relax and enjoy the last month of school.” But this spring, “all of a sudden nothing is the same,” in the words of Kiana Labor, vice president of BFA Fairfax’s class of 2020. She and her classmates are checking in

with teachers online, doing schoolwork at home, cooking and watching movies with their families, and texting and Snapchatting friends. The three seniors — Bates, DeCell and Labor — have known each other since kindergarten, when each started at BFA Fairfax. They’ve hung out everywhere from the playground to the junior prom. Accustomed to seeing each other every day at school, they haven’t spoken in person since March 17. At that time, DeCell assumed the break from school would last two weeks, and she thought, This will be nice. “O n c e t h e social distancing set in, it was like, It’s not nice,” she said. “It’s not fun to be away from other people.” In individual conversations and a Zoom session with Seven Days last week, the girls reflected on the abrupt end of their high school experience and how they’re navigating this strange spring. They spoke fondly of their childhoods with a close group of friends in Fairfax but said they’re looking forward to seeing new places and meeting new people postgraduation. The three are conscientious about social distancing. DeCell and Bates, who have afterschool jobs, said they only leave home to go to work. Labor said that if she goes to the store with one of her parents, she waits in the car while they shop. “I’m making sure that I’m staying safe so that other people can stay safe,” said DeCell, who will turn 18 on May 9. She plans to spend her birthday at home with her family and on the phone with friends. Labor observed that the coronavirus is affecting families around the world on a “greater spectrum” than it’s impacting her and her friends. “As much as it’s awful that I’m not experiencing the senior year that I thought I was going to, I think if we didn’t social distance it would be much worse,” she said.

EDUCATION

‘I miss being with my friends’

A prep cook at Mill River Brewing BBQ & Smokehouse in St. Albans, Sage DeCell plans to major in justice studies and biology at the University of New Hampshire. She’s interested in a career in forensics. UNH appeals to her, she said, because it reminds her of Vermont but is far enough from home that “my parents couldn’t come and visit me every single day.” During her junior and senior years of high school, DeCell has divided her studies between BFA Fairfax and Burlington

Technical Center, where she’s a student in the health sciences program. In late winter, the curriculum at BTC began to include study of the coronavirus. “We did a lot of research on it,” DeCell said. “A lot of us were scared and confused.” Teachers at both schools have “lightened the workload” in recent weeks, she said, recognizing that students are under stress. “I miss being with my friends,” DeCell lamented. “My grade is very, very close. Not being able to enjoy our senior year together, and laugh with them and be with them, is really, really hard.” She and Labor are among the four seniors on the cheerleading team, an activity she started in fourth grade. DeCell said she’s grateful the team got to cheer during basketball season and celebrate senior night before physical school came to end. “My team is like my second family,” she said. “I see them every single day. Having that second family, where I can joke around [with] people my age, is something that I really value.”

‘The last big accomplishment’

One day last week before Natalie Bates left for her job at Hannaford in Essex Junction, she and her sister Mariah, a high school first-year, worked on their homework. Little sister Vivian, a kindergartner, also worked on a school project, constructing a parachute with their father. “She definitely misses her friends a lot,” Bates said of Vivian. “I think it’s hard for someone that age, just like it’s hard for everyone.” As her sisters finish a school year that represents a level of beginning, Bates is on another trajectory: coming to the end of school life at BFA. “I never thought I would actually miss going to school,” she said. Since classes let out last month, Bates has been working longer hours at Hannaford to save money for college. In the fall she’ll attend Plymouth State in New Hampshire, where she intends to major in finance. Bates is a cashier at the supermarket and also packs orders for customers who shop online. It’s been very busy — and occasionally volatile — at the store during the pandemic, she observed. Customers fight over toilet paper and “aren’t always the nicest” to employees. Bates and her coworkers, ringing up orders of $300 to $400, can only go so fast. “You would think people would be more understanding,” she said. In their old routine, after school ended

for the day, Bates and Labor sometimes went to lunch in Burlington or St. Albans. They miss those excursions but note that they’re saving money since the trips stopped. Bates has watched her friends walk across the stage at graduation since she entered high school. She thinks about doing the same with a group of kids she’s known since she was a little girl. “It’s the last big accomplishment that you do as a class,” Bates said. “Everyone’s there, and it’s the last time you’re with that group of people before everyone does their own thing.” In Fairfax, graduation brings together familiar faces and friends, as well as lots of relatives. “That’s super special for me,” Bates said.

‘High school has seemed so short’

When Kiana Labor was in kindergarten and people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up, she answered, “cheerleader.” “That was my career plan for many years,” Labor said. “It’s changed a little bit.” Now she plans to study science — she’s unsure what branch she’ll specialize in — at the University of Tennessee. She fell in love with the school through online and long-distance interactions. Labor had planned to visit the Knoxville campus in late March with her father, but the pandemic killed that plan. Instead, she took a virtual tour. Labor said she studies four to six hours a day for her senior classes, which she’s now taking remotely: AP language and composition, AP calculus, financial literacy, and chemistry. Attending school from home means she can sleep later, but the bonus doesn’t offset what she misses: the routine of her school day, seeing her friends in person and bouncing ideas off other people in the classroom. “I’m someone who works through collaboration,” Labor said. “And I feel like it’s harder online.” Though plans for graduation at BFA Fairfax are uncertain, Labor said that if she gets to speak at the ceremony, she’ll encourage her classmates not to take things for granted — especially the little things that you don’t notice until they come to a sudden end. “High school has seemed so short,” she said. “I didn’t think I would miss chemistry. I didn’t think I would miss walking down the hallway. Now I miss those things, and I can’t go back in time.” m

NEED SOME ADVICE ON LIFE? the

REVEREND A sage and sassy adviser to answer reader questions on matters large and small.

What’s your problem? Send it to: asktherev@sevendaysvt.com

Contact: sally@sevendaysvt.com SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020 4V-Asktherev040319.indd 1

39 3/31/20 5:18 PM

Story Time

Cultural organizations document Vermonters’ experiences in the coronavirus era B Y K R IST EN R AV I N

ow will Vermonters remember the coronavirus era? In past crises, Green Mountain State cultural organizations have stepped up to create historical records of Vermonters’ experiences. The Vermont Folklife Center, for example, began offering story circles as a way for folks to process the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. The center recorded and archived many of these stories for posterity. During World War II, Norwich University preserved letters from students and alumni serving abroad. The Vermont Historical Society even has an archive of items from the 1918 influenza pandemic. Now, several local entities are working to document Vermonters’ lives and experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though their work shares some common threads, each organization has a unique angle on assembling accounts from Green Mountain State residents. For the Vermont Folklife Center, the act of listening is just as important as telling one’s story; that’s at the heart of Listening in Place, the Middlebury-based organization’s COVID-19 response project. Listening in Place is a three-pronged endeavor. For the first element, VFC is creating a crowdsourced sound archive composed of audio recordings. These might be interviews or sounds from daily life, such as the noises made during a meal or found on a walk outdoors. A second element is the Show Us Your Masks! initiative, for which VFC is requesting images of homemade protective masks. Finally, VFC has taken the in-person story circle format to the web. Hosted via videoconference, virtual story circles are moderated opportunities for Vermonters to share their experiences — and listen to those of others. To retain a sense of intimacy, the story circles are limited to six to eight participants, each of whom may grant VFC permission to add their portion of the recording to the sound archive. As of an April 15 phone interview with Seven Days, VFC education and media specialist Mary Wesley said the center had held just one virtual story circle and received fewer than 10 audio submissions. Though they were few, submissions contained quality content. “I do think that there is a lot of connection and relationship building happening,” Wesley said, “and I feel like that’s coming 40

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

CULTURE

Photo submitted to the Vermont Historical Society’s COVID-19 Archive in which scarecrows demonstrate proper social distancing in a Montpelier yard; Below: photos submitted to Show Us Your Masks!, part of a Vermont Folklife Center project

I DO THINK THAT THERE IS

A LOT OF CONNECTION AND RELATIONSHIP BUILDING HAPPENING. MARY WES L E Y

through in the recordings and the stories themselves that I’m hearing, but also the fact of people being willing to jump onto another videoconference for the express purpose of listening.” A second virtual storytelling circle on April 16 included five participants, along with facilitators Wesley and VFC executive director Kathleen Haughey. Among the participants were a college student, two journalists, a librarian and an art educator. With the help of prompts, folks shared thoughts on newfound challenges (missing friends and family), silver linings (time for creative projects), and what they’ve gone through during the past few weeks, such as returning home early from studying abroad, learning to homeschool children and driving on eerily empty highways. Future circles are scheduled for April 30 and May 2. Vermonters can stay up to date on upcoming virtual story circles and learn more about Listening in Place at vermontfolklifecenter.org. The Vermont Historical Society is also relying on crowdsourced material to create its COVID-19 Archive. According

to the VHS website, its collection will be a resource for future researchers studying the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on life in Vermont in 2020. It includes original photos, stories, poems and videos documenting life in the state during the health crisis. Eventually, wrote VHS librarian Paul Carnahan in an email to Seven Days, the society will start collecting physical artifacts. “We definitely want real signs and homemade masks in addition to pictures of signs and masks,” he wrote, “but it is a little early to ask for those.” Carnahan also noted that 92 items were already in the digital archive as of April 17. A visit to website covid-19.digitalvermont. org shows everything from an oil painting created by a Lamoille County resident in quarantine to an email message communicating the closure of the Weston Town Clerk and Treasurer’s Office to screenshots of virtual work meetings. Photos appear to be the most commonly submitted items. One shared on the site shows a seder table set with wine, candles and a laptop computer for dining

with relatives through the web. Another captures two scarecrows demonstrating proper social distancing in a Montpelier yard. Submissions are accepted and posted at covid-19.ditigalvermont.org. Taking an academic angle, Norwich University in Northfield is sharing accounts through a new initiative called Perspectives Project: COVID-19. Conceived by assistant professor Michael Thunberg, the project offers information and reflections on the virus and its implications from scholars across various disciplines. “I saw this as kind of a proactive way to show both students and the rest of the outside world that we are this intellectually engaged community that can take the thing that we’re learning in the classroom and connect it to things that are going on in the real world,” said Thunberg in a video interview with Seven Days. To that end, Thunberg is compiling essays and articles written by faculty and staff, aiming to publish one per day for the duration of Gov. Phil Scott’s stay-at-home order, now in effect until May 15. (Thunberg hopes to prolong the project if the order is extended.) Pieces from Thunberg ’s project have been published daily since April 7 on Voices From the Hill, a new online platform developed by the university’s communications office. The works examine the virus through the lenses of mathematics, geography, history, engineering, politics and other disciplines, prompting members of the academic community and readers at large to think about the pandemic in new ways. Additionally, in a March 31 video address to the Norwich University community, president Richard W. Schneider asked students and alumni to write letters to the university, just as folks did during WWII. “Tell us what you’re doing, how you’re surviving through this crisis. What things are you doing to help your family or your community?” he asked in the video. “Because I want [the letters] there for the students 50 or 100 years from now when we’re celebrating our 300th birthday, so they can read what you did.” Digital submissions can be sent to archives@norwich.edu. Physical documents should be mailed to the Norwich University Archives, Kreitzberg Library, at 158 Harmon Drive in Northfield. m Contact: kravin@sevendaysvt.com

GOOD CITIZEN CORONAVIRUS

Challenge! Looking for something educational — and fun — to do with your kids at home? This new Challenge, open to all K-12 students, will focus on timely topics that will help us all get through the next few months:

History

How people got through difficulties in the past

News Literacy

How to tell good info from bad, especially online

Community

Helping others get through the pandemic

HOW IT WORKS

• We’ll be posting a few new activities each week at goodcitizenvt.com. All of them can be completed at home! We’ll choose a variety of different types of tasks each week; there will be something for everyone, regardless of age. • Do one activity or do them all! Everyone age 18 or under who submits an activity will be entered to win a weekly prize. We’ll raffle it off — and share the best work we receive — during a weekly video broadcast/virtual meeting. • The prize drawings take place on Wednesdays at 2 p.m. Watch the Facebook Live broadcast via the Kids VT Facebook page.

This week’s winner will receive a $25 gift card to Phoenix Books!

VIEW ACTIVITIES AT

With support from:

GOODCITIZENVT.COM Evslin Family Foundation

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SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

4/21/20 7:50 PM

Zoom Seder BY M AD EL EI NE KU NIN

First I saw my face appear on the computer screen

The Egyptians would have been dumbstruck:

There was no meal we could share together, no

puffier than I imagined.

The Jews have survived.

matzoh ball soup, gefilte fish, or brisket.

Then my daughter holding her six

Arthur, who used to be my husband,

month old nephew, Thomas, smiling.

took his role as Leader seriously

Each family retreated to its own dining room,

It was his first Seder.

finding a robust voice.

I cooed.

I asked, where did he find that sound

Others popped up, almost from nowhere,

at the age of ninety-four?

two grandchildren standing at a dining room table with their blurred parents, behind them, another pair of husband wife perched side by side on a sofa, like ghosts turned solid before they were snuffed out by Zoom. It was a miracle. The thread of tradition, frayed in places, was rewoven by long, stretched wires.

sensing the void and wanting to remain together. We skipped to the last pages of the Haggadah

I heard a jumble of voices

and turned to the songs, sung since childhood.

speaking at once because

Our voices were liberated and loud:

we could not see who should go next in the prescribed order of things.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;ONE KID, ONE KID WHICH MY FATHER BOUGHT FOR TWO ZUZEEM,â&#x20AC;? from

We canceled each other out.

beginning to end.

According to an invisible signal,

Tradition, tradition.

we fell silent and waited for the next voice to jump out.

The story of Passover had been recited once again.

To bless the matzo, the parsley dipped in salt water, the bitter and the sweet.

We had kept the pandemic hidden, if only for one night. Thank you, Zoom.

Madeleine Kunin was the Democratic governor of Vermont from 1985 to 1991 and the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland from 1996 to 1999. Her most recent book is Coming of Age: My Journey to the Eighties. She has been writing coronavirus poems for several weeks. madeleinekunin.org

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

POETRY

Two words. Thank You. From the teachers, paraeducators, school nurses, custodians, bus drivers, food service workers, guidance counselors, librarians, and everyone else who educate Vermont’s children, we want to thank Seven Days and all local news outlets for being there for us.

To keep us informed. To tell us what we need to know. To dig for the truth, without fear or favor. To hold those in power accountable. In short, to help us all make sense of our little corner of the world. Without committed local news organizations – and the reporters, editors, and photographers who work for them – we’d be in the dark. Like our public schools, local news organizations are cornerstones of our communities and bedrocks of our democracy. Now more than ever, we need you. Because when you are able to do your jobs, the rest of us can do ours.

vtnea.org

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SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

4/21/20 2:36 PM

food+drink

osters urging Americans to “Dig on for Victory” and “Be a Soldier of the Soil” were ubiquitous during World War II. The patriotic propaganda was designed to enlist a militia of gardeners armed with trowels and rakes — and it worked. In an April 1943 Gallup poll, 21 million Americans reported that they planned to have a “victory garden” that year. Many of the people getting their hands dirty for the sake of victory — up to one-third of them, by government estimates — were growing vegetables for the first time. These victory gardens were the result of a government-led movement; the idea was that produce grown in backyards and empty lots would fill the gaps resulting from a decreased labor pool and increased demand for food. While food was rationed on the home front, victory gardens supplemented American diets and gave the gardeners both a sense of control and a way to contribute to the cause. While 1940s victory gardens were government-driven, the interest in gardening right now, during the coronavirus pandemic, is self-driven. No posters are instructing us to plant seeds and keep a safe social distance, or pushing slogans such as “Stay Home, Stay Gardening” and “Spread Compost, Not COVID-19.” The global public health and economic crisis has driven a growing number of Vermonters to take up gardening. Seeds and agricultural businesses have been deemed “essential” in the state; Burlington Area Community Gardens plots are open for returning no-till gardeners, with strict social-distancing protocols; and nurseries are adapting to the exigencies of operating safely in a pandemic, as well as to an increased early-spring demand. Is the gardening boom a sort of homesteader cosplay driven by boredom? Or is it a reaction to the threat of economic hardship and fear of food system disruption? Whatever the reason, many people are raising beds and starting seeds.

Victory for Gardening

Nurseries and farms adapt to support a pandemic gardening boom B Y J O R D AN BAR RY

Abundance Ambulance

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With a warm spring and a cooped-up population eager to get outdoors, Vermont nurseries are selling plants earlier and in higher numbers than in previous years. And they’re adapting to completely new modes of doing business. “We’re selling a lot more plants than we usually do this early,” Julie Rubaud told Seven Days. Rubaud owns Red Wagon Plants in Hinesburg, one of the many nurseries around the state that — in response to

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The nursery has upped the percentage of edible plants it will grow this year, particularly herbs and vegetable starts. A quick pivot to a new online store with the capacity to handle unprecedented e-commerce has been key, as has sharing videos and information on social media. “Our team is meeting this challenge head-on and doing their best work ever,” Rubaud said. “We all understand how important and therapeutic it is to have your hands in dirt, weeding and planting.” To streamline their operations, and to help new gardeners know what to plant when, Red Wagon is offering plant bundles. “It’s sort of like the Dedalus wine club,” Rubaud said, referring to the

Burlington wine shop and market. “You’re going to get something really great, and we’re going to have different bundles that you can order, but you’re not necessarily going to get a Chardonnay every time.” With a cold climate and short growing season, Vermont gardeners face a unique set of challenges. To help prepare aspiring green thumbs as best she can, Rubaud offers frequent workshops. Formerly convivial gatherings in a toasty greenhouse, the classes are now on Zoom; Rubaud aims her webcam at a mock garden and demonstrates the proper depth of a trench for planting onions, the best method for mounding leeks, and other gardening techniques. “Our workshops are really helpful to beginner gardeners, but they’re also a great way to talk shop and connect with other gardeners,” she said. “There’s a social aspect that we’re all craving right now, and even though it’s Zoom, it still sort of scratches that itch.” Newbie and experienced gardeners alike are seeking connection with each other, with nature and with a yearly ritual that marks the passage of time. Reasons for gardening can be practical — taste, food safety and security, cheaper fresh produce — but they can also be emotional, even spiritual. “It’s how we feel grounded,” Rubaud said. “When you’re really a gardener, that ritual of planting a seed, seeing your plants grow, and harvesting, it’s part of our lives.” Not unlike the Victory Garden campaign, Rubaud’s overall message encourages bounty. “We’re growing more plants than ever, and you can have abundance in your backyard, too,” she said, joking that she would like to write “Abundance Ambulance” on the side of Red Wagon’s delivery van. “We’re here to save you with all of our abundance.”

The Extra Five Miles

For Heidi Racht, who co-owns Pleasant Mount Farm in Huntington with Alan Campbell, the beginning of the growing season is a time of excitement and hope. “It sounds sort of cliché — and I did read this somewhere — but gardens really are all about hope,” she said. “You think, you’re going to put in your garden, it’s going to grow and you’re going to get something.” This year, that usually joyful anticipation has an undertone of anxiety, as small businesses figure out how and when they’re going to open. Pleasant Mount is a family-operated, certified organic greenhouse and a seasonal business. For 28 years, it has opened the Sunday after Green Up Day, an event that Racht usually coordinates in Huntington. This year that VICTORY FOR GARDENING

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ETHAN JOSEPH

Gov. Scott’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order — have rapidly implemented systems for online ordering, curbside pickup and local delivery of plants, seeds and garden supplies. Rubaud speculated that the rush to buy plants “a little on the early side” in April might be a sign of new, eager gardeners. She’s also seen an influx in sign-ups for the nursery’s popular e-newsletter, and the analytics on Red Wagon’s newly revamped website show new traffic, as well. “We’re getting questions that seem to be beginner gardener questions, like, ‘Is it OK to seed lettuce right now?’” Rubaud said. “It’s fantastic. We love beginner gardeners.”

Ethan Joseph and Jessica DeBiasio’s front-yard garden

A GROWING MOVEMENT Looking for garden inspiration? In a suburban South Burlington neighborhood, Ethan Joseph and Jessica DeBiasio have transformed their front lawn into a 2,500-square-foot mini farm. When the couple bought their house in 2012, they knew they wanted to have a big home garden. Putting it in front of the house wasn’t meant as a statement; it was a necessity. In the summer, it’s a showcase of vegetables, herbs, fruit trees and flowers. “Our backyard, where most people would do their gardening and nonpublic activities, is all wooded and quite wet,” Joseph told Seven Days. “The front yard is what our piece of property offered us. Now I kind of have an aversion to lawns, and I’ve been on a mission to get rid of all of the turf grass on our property.” Joseph, who is the head winemaker and vineyard manager at Shelburne Vineyard, is a lifelong gardener. When he and DeBiasio were looking for a place to buy, they initially wanted to be farther outside the urban area and have a bit of land. But the suburban life has turned out to suit them perfectly. “I can get home from working in the vineyard all day and have this sizable — but still really manageable — garden to take care of as a hobby and a way to clear my head,” Joseph said. “Any bigger and it would feel too much like work.” Joseph’s background in grape growing and agriculture has given him an understanding of soils and plant interactions, which is advantageous in home gardening. But he said those advanced skills are not necessary in order to create a successful, diverse garden.

“We take steps in the vineyard to increase biodiversity, but on my little 2,500-square-foot garden, I have infinitely more diversity than I could in a row of grapes,” Joseph said. The food the couple produces — nearly three dozen crops — is supplemental, but it provides enough tomatoes to freeze as sauce, beans to dry, and squash to eat through the winter. Over time, Joseph and DeBiasio have noticed raised beds, fruit trees and small gardens cropping up around their neighborhood. “I don’t know if they’re out of a bit of camaraderie and we were their direct inspiration,” Joseph said, “but being out front of the house working all the time, we have a lot of opportunity to interact with our neighbors.” He’s happy to share advice about how to reclaim an unruly grape vine or begin the transition from lawn to garden. “In the suburban and urban environment, definitely start with a soil test,” Joseph advised. “Other than that, don’t overcomplicate it.” He recommends a long-term approach, including building soil fertility, and keeping in mind that squirrels and other wildlife in suburbia might eat some crops — even those grown by a professional winemaker. “Like anything, you’re going to win some and you’re going to lose some, and you can’t let it be too discouraging,” Joseph said. Turning a front lawn into a productive garden takes work and attention, but he hopes more people will make the effort to feed themselves and their communities. “Hopefully our garden is going to keep inspiring people to even just put in a 2-by-4foot raised bed. Anything to get people started, and then from there we just hope that it will keep spreading.”

» P.46 SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

food+drink Victory for Gardening « P.45

Community-Supported Gardening

For gardeners who are overwhelmed by the planning process, Burlington’s Half Pint Farm is offering the Garden Club. It’s a plant CSA that allows members to choose from the dozens of vegetable varieties Emily and Sean Mitchell grow on 46

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

FILE: DARIA BISHOP

event is postponed until May 30, so the new plan is to be ready to open for curbside pickup as soon as the weather is warm enough. She’s targeting the second Saturday in May. The schedule change is just one of the adaptations Pleasant Mount is working through. The farm has seen an early demand for seed orders: Seed companies are prioritizing commercial growers in their online sales, so home gardeners face long wait times. Racht put the word out that Pleasant Mount had plenty of seeds, and she’s been playing a welcome version of ding-dong-ditch while dropping off orders on porches around town. The farm is prepared to offer curbside service for greenhouse plants, too, and is testing the method with seed orders. Pleasant Mount upgraded its website and got its first Square reader this year. Sales had been cash or check only, though an IOU system let customers send checks after the fact. “We’re small enough that it’s not unwieldy to make these personal exceptions,” Racht said. She thinks that small-business agility will help her company have a successful season. Some customers have been coming to the greenhouse for decades to pick out their plants, arranging tomato and pepper starts into variety packs ideal for small home plots. Racht is prepared to take over that variety-pack assembly, keeping in mind where her regulars live and what their growing conditions are. “We have tomato plants we call our ‘Lincoln variety,’ which are [for] the really short season,” Racht explained. “You wouldn’t recommend a 90-day tomato to someone in Lincoln, but somebody from Charlotte would be just fine with them.” “We already go the extra mile with customer service, so I guess we’re going the extra five miles this year,” she said with a laugh. Racht’s advice for new gardeners? Choose what you like to eat and then make a good plan for planting, with plenty of reading to help along the way. “Do your homework, and don’t overdo it the first year,” she said. “It’s so tempting, but it’s all about keeping it small so that you’re successful.”

Emily and Sean Mitchell of Half Pint Farm

RIGHT NOW, IT’S SO IMPORTANT TO EMPOWER SOMEBODY TO NOT ONLY FEED THEMSELVES

BUT FEEL INSPIRED TO FEED THEIR NEIGHBOR. S E AN MITC H E L L

Heidi Racht tending seedlings at Pleasant Mount Farm

their Intervale farm. Using their extensive growing knowledge, the couple personalizes a garden plan and delivers it to the gardener’s doorstep. “Once we found out that the Burlington Farmers Market wasn’t going to start up right away — we still have our fingers crossed about that happening at some point — we had to figure out something to do with our plant starts,” Emily said. The farm typically sells starts throughout May at the market, as well as to Gardener’s

Supply. This year, they needed to find an outlet for about half of their plants. “It made sense that gardening would be big right now, and we really enjoyed helping a few friends plan out their gardens last year,” she continued. The model is similar to the farm’s Food Club CSA, in which customers pay at the beginning of the season for weekly produce throughout the summer. In the Garden Club, they can choose plants for a modest garden, a grand garden or a community garden

installation. The Mitchells also offer a rotational add-on, which delivers monthly plugs for fresh salad greens and scallions. “I feel like there’s a lot of buzz and demand for gardens in general because people have more time right now,” Sean said. “They’re thinking it would be nice to be outside and using your time to do something that’s not, like, just sitting on your couch and watching Netflix. Also, people don’t have a whole lot of money right now, and it makes a lot of sense to subsidize your weekly groceries by yourself like that.” The shift to a CSA-style model rather than a focus on wholesale is in line with the couple’s goals for the farm, which they bought from Mara and Spencer Welton last year. Sean said it brings them closer to the community and fits the couple’s personalities. It also avoids the volatility associated with selling to restaurant kitchens during this crisis. A handful of gardeners have signed up since the Garden Club launched on April 12. Between this new venture and the Food Club CSA, the farm has had a lot of traffic. Though it might be early to start planting, the club’s members can choose their plants now and specify a delivery date in May. Garden Club members can access season-long support from the Half Pint farmers. That might be particularly welcome to new gardeners, or to anyone experimenting with the myriad varieties the farm offers — from artichokes and ground cherries to six kinds of basil and 110 types of tomatoes. Sean is quick to offer encouragement to home gardeners. “Growing food isn’t really hard!” he said. “If you water it once or twice a week and weed, pretty much anything is going to be OK.” For every CSA membership they sell — Food Club or Garden Club — Half Pint will donate food and plant starts to Feeding Chittenden. “We’re here to feed people,” Sean said. Through those donations and promoting community-size victory gardens, the Mitchells hope to inspire their customers to band together. “Right now, it’s so important to empower somebody to not only feed themselves but feel inspired to feed their neighbor,” he said. Contact: jbarry@sevendaysvt.com

INFO Red Wagon Plants, 2408 Shelburne Falls Rd., Hinesburg, 482-4060, redwagonplants.com. Pleasant Mount Farm, 4501 Main Rd., Huntington, 434-2690, pleasantmountfarm.com. Half Pint Farm, 214 Intervale Rd., Burlington, 430-4374, halfpintfarmvt.com.

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Vermont restaurants are off-limits to dine-in customers for the foreseeable future, but they are still making delicious food — for TAKEOUT, DELIVERY or CURBSIDE PICKUP. Adult beverage with that? Liquor-license-holding Vermont restaurants can also sell take-out wine, beer and spirit-based drinks for off-site consumption. Drink up! And don’t forget to buy GIFT CARDS! Check GoodToGoVermont.com to see what your favorite eatery is serving up.

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Craig Mitchell livestreaming with Big Heavy World

News and views on the local music + nightlife scene BY D A N BO LL E S

An old axiom says that there are but two certainties in life: death and taxes. But I’d like to add another immutable constant, at least as it pertains to the Vermont music scene: When the going gets tough, Big Heavy World will do some pretty cool shit to help out. As you might have heard, the going has indeed gotten tough of late. And so, true to form, JIM LOCKRIDGE and his merry band of volunteer do-gooders at BHW are doing what they do best: um … good! 48

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

As every musician and their mom moves to streaming their concerts online, BHW is helping those artists to reach potentially broader audiences than they might on their own by simulcasting select shows over the air on its low-power radio station, 105.9FM the Radiator, as well as streaming at bigheavyworld.com. So far, songwriter LINDA BASSICK and folk singer RIK PALIERI are among the Vermont musicians who have gotten a Big Heavy radio boost. And DJs CRAIG MITCHELL and FATTIE B, aka KYLE THOMPSON, have streamed their DJ sets and dance parties through BHW, as well. The former has been doing shows aimed

Speaking of hip sounds on your FM dial, the University of Vermont’s WRUV 90.1FM is still on the air and broadcasting new content, even though students vacated campus more than a month ago. According to WRUV public relations director CHRISTA GUZMAN, DJs are prerecording shows — including news segments and quirky public service announcements — through recording software programs such as GarageBand and slotting them in the rotation wherever there is space. Otherwise, the station’s automated system kicks in with robotic rocking. Guzman explained via email that the station’s schedule isn’t currently being updated online, so really the only way to know when a new show is on is to tune in. But she noted that DJs are still following the tried-and-true formula that has made WRUV a pillar of local radio for 65 years: “Only clean music and no songs that are/have ever been on the top 100. We gotta stay the better alternative!” Amen.

So You Had Better Do as You Are Told

S UNDbites Radio Is a Sound Salvation

Radio Is Cleaning Up the Nation

at a variety of select audiences, including people in recovery and LGBTQ groups. Thompson has been packing Zoom rooms like he used to fill up Retronome. And here’s the best part: Anyone can do it. All you’ve gotta do is email BHW at info@bigheavyworld.com and include the details of your show. If it fits into their broadcast schedule, they’ll put you on the air. (Note: The FCC is still the FCC, even in a pandemic. So if you do end up on air, watch your fucking mouth, OK?)

In non-terrestrial radio news, at least a few local musicians are taking to the digital airwaves to kill time, find creative outlets and/or stave off the soulnumbing delirium of nonstop isolation. (Who knew the apocalypse would be so dull and lonely?) Earlier this month, BLUE BUTTON’s JASON COOLEY and his old friend and bandmate CHRIS LENTZ launched “The

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The High Breaks

Cool & Shiny Radio Hour” through Cooley’s website, jasonx12.wixsite.com/ coolshinyradiohour. While the show is weekly, new episodes don’t necessarily come out on any set day — they’re also typically much longer than an hour. That casual, scattershot approach is evident in the show itself, which Cooley described thus: “The idea is to just play whatever we want. So it’s all over the place.” And how! The most recent episode, posted on Monday, featured songs by, among many others, ELVIS PRESLEY, neo-soul musician CODY CHESNUTT, 1970s songwriter HARRY NILSSON, pop singer LANA DEL REY, spaghetti western composer ENNIO MORRICONE, FLEETWOOD MAC oneoff BUCKINGHAM NICKS, 1980s rappers RAMMELLZEE and K-ROB, and YOKO ONO. “I basically started it out of boredom and wanting to hear back from friends without having to discuss the youknow-what,” wrote Cooley in an email. “I realized I’d been on Facebook wayyyy more than I usually am and needed to do something else.” Cooley explained that the idea for the show came to him while watching the 1971 cult classic road movie Two-Lane Blacktop, in which the main characters spend a lot of time listening to 1970s Los Angeles radio — specifically, 93/KHJ with DON STEELE, which, Cooley noted, is also heard throughout QUENTIN TARANTINO’s Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood. Cooley enlisted Lentz, who lives in Brooklyn with his family, so he’d have someone to talk to. In the 1990s, both played together with GOGOL BORDELLO’s

EUGENE HÜTZ in the seminal Burlington punk band the FAGS and later as the offbeat duo BAG OF PANTIES. The shows do have the familiar feel of two lifelong friends — who happen to have broad and interesting musical tastes — goofily shooting the shit about life and music, which is precisely the point. “I think radio’s most basic function is to be a pleasant distraction,” Cooley offered, “which is something we all need right now.”

You Better Listen to the Radio

Cooley isn’t the only Burlington rocker with eclectic tastes using time in isolation to mess around with digital radio. MATT HAGEN might be the most compulsively busy musician in town, between his work with surf-noir outfit the HIGH BREAKS, his LOCAL DORK DJ sets with BOB WAGNER, his one-man band MATT THE GNAT AND THE GATORS, his hip-hop persona DJ MATT HAGEN MC, his doommetal band SAVAGE HEN, and the three other projects he just started in the time it took you to read this sentence. And now he’s got a new quarantine gig: hosting his new radio show, aptly titled “Radio Show.” “Radio Show” airs live via the online platform Mixlr every Wednesday and Saturday at 7 p.m. In each episode, Hagen plays songs from across a broad stylistic spectrum but adds a bit of historical or social context for each that he’s researched. It’s kind of a hybrid of JOEL NAJMAN’s weekly rock and roll history show “My Place” on Vermont Public Radio and JON FISHMAN’s SiriusXM

show “The Errant Path,” in which the PHISH drummer dives down a wide variety of musical rabbit holes. Also, there are weather forecasts. “It’s an updated, socially commenting, heavily eclectic version of ‘My Place’ that attempts to engage and educate the listener,” Hagen explains in an email. “I naturally end up weaving a narrative that connects the songs to each other as well, as if the songs themselves are the conversation. “I’m basically fusing ‘My Place,’ ‘The Errant Path,’ and DJ Matt Hagen MC’s observations of the social and meteorological climate,” he continues. Like his own musical pursuits, Hagen’s shows cover a wide range of musical terrain, from the big-band music of the 1940s to ’50s rock and country to ’60s psychedelia to ’70s soul and funk to ’80s pop to new releases. “I suppose I’m concentrating on what I’ve always enjoyed doing, just applying it to a ‘listening program,’” he writes. “The craft I’ve always been fascinated with is comfortably challenging people in a way that makes them want to lean into something they may have otherwise never taken a chance on.” In other Hagen news, he relays that the High Breaks plan to release a surfrock opera this summer called Smirk of the Dolphin, which is supposedly based on a true story. The surf trio enlisted a number of guests, including pedal steel ace BRETT LANIER, saxophonist CAROLINE O’CONNOR and multi-instrumentalist DAN DAVINE. There are also loads of sugary vocals, harkening back to LENDWAY, the Burlington pop band that essentially morphed into the High Breaks. Check out a three-minute sampler track — Hagen describes it as an “overture, of sorts” — at thehighbreaks.bandcamp.com.

Listening In

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Here’s a peek at what’s been on my bunker hi-fi lately. ELVIS COSTELLO, This Year’s Model ERIC GEORGE, Lily Died for Love LENDWAY, The Low Red End THE FAGS, No Fleas Lunch Money

and Gold Teeth FIONA APPLE, Fetch the Bolt Cutters

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REVIEW this Eastern Mountain Time, Seven

third full-length album maintains the melancholy mood of their previous releases. Lyrically, Hood is all kinds of selfeffacing. Example: The dude wrote a song called “(If You’re Missing Me) You Ain’t Missing Much” for the band’s 2017 album Mountain Country. On Seven’s first cut, “Dolores Park,”

Hood broods over past failures: “How could I return with all I did not learn? / Just this scar on my cheek / Not one penny earned, few more bridges burned / And a month with no sleep.” If Hood’s narrator has made mistakes, at least he’s self-aware. On “Marlboro ’99,” he seems to acknowledge that a guy can only play the role of endearing fuckup for so long: “Lonesome like a justquit smoke / Washed up like some ’80s joke / Sleeping one off in the sand / And I don’t know if it was funny then / But, man, it’s breaking me now.” A valuable realization, indeed. The record isn’t all doom and gloom, though. “All We Need” is a buoyant honky-tonk number made for swigging cheap beer in sticky-floored establishments with your partner in crime. Maddy Hejna and Gena Zollman bolster Hood’s adequate singing with shadowy background vocals throughout most of the album’s seven songs. On

“Darker Now,” just after Hood warbles, “And now my mother on the phone / She says her new couch is a fold-out / And I could still come home,” the women pipe up with ghostly “Oooh, ooohs.” It’s almost comical how perfectly the sound reinforces the horror of crashing at your parents’ house as an adult. Other players include bassist Alex Bigelow (who also rips a heartbreaking guitar solo on “Marlboro ’99”), drummer and guitarist Danny LeFrancois, pedal steel whiz Anthony Naples, and Sam Buck on synth. (Hood says Buck also served as the album’s de facto coproducer.) Alt-country fans will surely be crying into their beer when Hood and company can finally take these songs on the road. And when will that be? As he sings in “On the Carolina Wind,” “Only time will tell if the times will change.” Seven is available at Bandcamp.

Calderin’s dad — longtime area DJ/ mover and shaker Luis Calderin. Hell, the record even kicks off with an intro track called “Intro,” which features the MC urging the listener to “sit back, relax and remember the name” over a blissedout synth loop. Rivan C. tips his cap to A Tribe Called Quest, gives love to his family and shouts out all the homies. It’s a great moment and becomes

even more impressive in retrospect as this flawlessly cohesive album unfolds. Where Vol. 1 was more of a grab bag — a new artist exploring his sound — Vol. 2 is a cold, calculated heist. The beats are all luxury funk with a timeless feel and a modern trap gloss on the drums. The opening set is particularly strong, spanning four dynamite tracks produced by Sean Waters, Sauron, Kevin Katana and 802 superproducer Es-K. The transitions are so perfect, you’d swear they were all working in the lab together. “Rewind” has some blistering tongue twisters and one of the catchiest beats on the album. “Jackie Joiner” delivers uplifting aspiration rap about the importance of “holding on to bigger dreams.” Throwback banger “Stupid Qpid” nearly steals the show, with a killer beat and a knockout hook from singer Eva Rawlings. It’s lead single material. The second half of the project switches gears several times, alternating

between light-speed raps and chilled-out R&B. Rivan C. is no Lionel Richie, but he’s engagingly goofy as a lead singer on “Goddess,” a love-song duet with vocalist Emma Glass. He also drops nimble, bilingual bars in double time on “Elevator,” an anthem that sounds like summer. Album closer “Teenage Apollo” manages to wrap all these threads together — and harken back to the “Intro” cut at the same time. Staying true to the Native Tongues-era theme, Rivan C. gives props to his “idols,” Mos Def and Talib Kweli. This is a smart, tight project that establishes Rivan C. as a leader of the new school, if you will. He’s more De La Soul than Black Star, seasoned with equal parts Jungle Brothers and FuSchnickens, but who knows what else he has up his sleeve? This is clearly just the beginning of a promising career. Teenage Apollo Vol. 2 by Rivan C. is available at SoundCloud.

(SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL)

Vermont’s music scene is not impervious to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. With large public gatherings off-limits, Eastern Mountain Time, the Burlington alt-country band fronted by guitarist and singer Sean Hood, pivoted from a planned Northeastern tour supporting its new LP, Seven, to a quickie digital release on April 7. “I didn’t want to wait for who-knows-how-long to share these recordings with my friends and family,” Hood wrote on Bandcamp. Fresh listening material couldn’t have come at a better time. Seven serves a certain emotional need that may be particularly pervasive during quarantine: You know those days when it actually feels good to be a little sad? Next time one of those rolls around, Seven is your soundtrack. Eastern Mountain Time’s

Rivan C., Teenage Apollo Vol. 2 (SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL)

Rivan C. — aka Rivan Calderin — is a young MC from the Burlington area who has been making increasingly big waves in the local scene. He’s a charismatic presence on the mic with a melodic, playful flow. He’s made his name off tight SoundCloud singles and engaging live shows, and he recently joined up with the jazz-rap outfit Juicebox, who are fast becoming house party legends. Rivan C.’s latest effort, Teenage Apollo Vol. 2, is a triumph of joyful noise. He delivers tasty, high-energy verses that express both his outsize personality and his humble, down-to-earth style. He’s “Mick Jagger with a drip,” but he also wants that perfect “four point oh” GPA. And he loves his mom. The LP is impeccably ’90s, which may be a credit to the influence of

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S E V E N D AY S V T. C O M / S U P E R - R E A D E R S

SEVEN DAYS APRIL 22-29, 2020

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64 67

8. Damp

drumming DJEMBE & TAIKO: JOIN US!: Digital classes starting March 30! (No classes on-site for now.) Taiko: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Djembe: Wednesday. Kids and Parents: Tuesday and Wednesday. Private digital conga lessons by appointment. Let’s prepare for a future drum gathering outdoors! Schedule/register online. Location: Taiko Space, 208 Flynn Ave., Suite 3G, Burlington. Info: 999-4255, burlingtontaiko.org.

60 62

65 ovy!" squared, for 68 are e you 66. Words on Alice's not want ACROSS lk alone 1. New snack corp. hires 67. Locked the ___(up) for role for Liz5. Have 68. Bit of Godunov, 9. “By yesterday!” choreography 13. Island of ne Napoleon’s exile 69. Nine-digit IDs e from Me. 14. 70. Cupid’s 2004 Brad Pitt projectile film hunch 16. Cotton deseeders ing remark 17. Sufficient employer 19. Down Tolkien treemen 1. Memory unit, for n and 20. Runs through a short kovich mill E-musings nt dancer 21. 2. Prepares Cut short 23.3. Great buy 4. Miss Hawkins of 24. Age abbr. Dogpatch er cycle 25. Heineken, e.g. Take 28.5. Item oncare a listof es Some Spanish 33.6. “Let’s Make Rock" ___” medals on & “Groovy!” Capote, to friends nkel hit) 37. 7.

39 42

classes

CLASSES MAY BE CANCELED OR MOVED ONLINE DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS. PLEASE CHECK WITH ORGANIZERS IN ADVANCE.

THE FOLLOWING CLASS LISTINGS ARE PAID ADVERTISEMENTS. ANNOUNCE YOUR CLASS FOR AS LITTLE AS $16.75/WEEK (INCLUDES SIX PHOTOS AND UNLIMITED DESCRIPTION ONLINE). SUBMIT YOUR CLASS AD AT SEVENDAYSVT.COM/POSTCLASS.

25 33

No. ANSWERS ON633 P. 65

36. Years, in Lisbon

12. “Hey you!” 52. Moran and 9. Long, long time 38.Cabbie’s Magician's 15. question Brockovich 10. Breaks a opening 18. Empower 56. Elegant dancer commandment 41. Dungeons "No kidding!" 22. & Fred 11. Some chips, maybe 42. Protocol Dragons game co. 60. Rear 26. Some MIT grads 12. "Hey you!" 47. Brit. record label 61. Washer cycle center 62. 15.Melees Cabbie's question 27. 49. Kind Pieceofmaker 29. Fan sounds 65. “___ Rock” 18. Empower 51. Gamblers' mecca 30. Suffix with buck & & 22.(Simon Dungeons 53. Bumbling 31. Element Garfunkel hit) Dragons game co. 54. Montana,#10 e.g., County 66. Words Alice’s 26. Someon MIT grads 32. Miami-___ once 33. Basics snack 27. Kind of center 55. "___ evil ..." 34. Chip’s cartoon 67. Locked (up) 29. Fan sounds 56.chum "No returns" 68. Bit of 30.choreography Suffix with buck 35. 57. Biblical Clash plot 31. Element #10 58. Proctor's call 36. Years, in Lisbon 69. Nine-digit IDs 32. Miami-___ County 59. Take ___ 38. Magician’s 70. 2004 Brad Pitt 33.film Basics (snooze) opening 34. Chip's cartoon 60.“No Songkidding!” of praise 41. DOWN 42. chum 63. Protocol Capt.'s inferiors 1. 35. Memory unit, for 47. Biblical plot 64. Brit. Hog'srecord homelabel short 49. Piece maker 2. E-musings 51. Gamblers’ mecca 3. Cut short 53. Bumbling 4. Miss Hawkins of 54. Montana, e.g., Dogpatch once 5. Take care of 55. “___ evil ...” 6. Some Spanish 56. “No returns” medals 57. Clash 7. Capote, to friends 58. Proctor’s call 8. Damp 59. Take ___ 9. Long, long time (snooze) 10. Breaks a 60. Song of praise commandment 63. Capt.’s inferiors 11. Some chips, maybe 64. Hog’s home