No one who lives in the Upper Valley needs to be told it was a fierce start to the winter. Extreme wind chills, double digit below zero nights, and damp cold days flourished in late December and January. As a result, fuel usage was at a max this winter.

Many area residents depend on firewood as a secondary, and primary heat source, and as those temps go down, so does the firewood pile. For some folks, ordering an extra cord of wood is not a problem. For others, however, the $250 or $300 for a cord is a financial hardship.

To meet the needs of those depending on firewood, and without the means to afford it, Norwich offers a community firewood reserve. Norwich resident David Hubbard heads up this community effort to help those in need of wood for heat.

Though the firewood is gathered and stored in Norwich (there are two sheds for storing the wood), Hubbard explains that anyone in need throughout the Upper Valley can use this wood. Folks from as far away as Windsor, Bridgewater, and Bradford (VT) have made use of this service.

Though it is occasionally possible for a delivery of wood to be made to the recipient, most who receive the wood come and pick it up themselves. “Eligibility for receiving the wood is based on the honor system,” says Hubbard. There are no applications for recipients to fill out, nor are there reviews to determine if someone is eligible. “If someone can afford wood, they should get it from a firewood dealer.”

Making the wood available depends on the hard work of volunteers, and the staff of the Norwich Public Works Department. Hubbard explains that Andy Hodgdon’s public works crew collects most of the log length firewood used from cutting jobs along Norwich’s roadsides, and transports the wood to the collection site at the firewood sheds. In addition, during slow times throughout the year, public works staff will devote time to cutting, splitting, and stacking the wood.

Community volunteers are also instrumental in the work. Once a year, in late October, Hubbard organizes a volunteer workday, with volunteers showing up with saws, wood splitters and trucks to cut, split, stack, and deliver the wood. Hubbard finds that many of his volunteers, “are 50 (years old) and older,” and he’d love to see “new blood, younger adults,” step up and get involved. Hubbard does point out that throughout the year, young folks from Youth In Action and Hanover High do pitch in and help stack wood, as do some Appalachian Trail hikers who stop and spend a few days in the area.

The two sheds where the firewood is stored can hold between 20 and 25 cord, Hubbard says. Last year, 100% of the stored wood was distributed, and this year, as of late February, about eight cord remain available. As many people run out of wood late in the season, chances are there will be little left at the end of this winter.

For those interested in more information on the firewood collection and distribution effort, visit the website for the Town of Norwich.

Norwich Historical Society Shares Skiing Lore

What’s the magic behind Norwich and its Olympic skiers? Is there a secret group of ski coaches hiding in the woods at the top of Elm Street? Are ski jumping classes a requirement at the Marion Cross School? Or is there a magic elixir in the town’s maple syrup? What else could explain the abundance of Olympic athletes who have come from this small Vermont town during the last sixty years?

Flying at Sample’s Jump

For starters, if you lived in Norwich in the 1930s, you really weren’t far from the center of a skiing revolution. It all began in 1934 with ‘Bunny’ Bertram, a 1931 Dartmouth graduate who captained the first Dartmouth ski team. He made history on a hillside pasture just north of Woodstock, Vermont when he rigged up “an endless rope tow, powered by a Model T Ford engine.” Prior to this time, once a skier got to the bottom of the hill, they had to hike back up the slope for the next run. “The ingenious contraption,” states the historical marker at the site, “launched a new era in winter sports.” Closer to Norwich, the original ski ‘lift’ in the country was developed at Hanover’s Oak Hill in 1935. The J-Bar ran successfully for more that 40 years, while Bertram’s rope tow lasted for just a year before he moved his operation over the hill and set up what became Suicide Six.

While the rope tows and J-Bars made the sport more accessible, especially to children, learning how to ski properly was still a challenge. Enter Ford K. Sayre. Ford learned to ski at Dartmouth and directed the Winter Carnival in 1933 when he was a senior. That same year, on a joint Dartmouth/Smith College trip to Mt. Moosilauke, Ford met his future wife, Peggy. The couple married in 1933, and managed the Moosilauke Lodge until 1936 when he became the manager of the Hanover Inn. At the Inn, he offered free ski lessons to children of guests and to kids in the neighboring towns. According to an article in the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine in the fall of 1944, Ford realized that during the Depression years, many children in the area, “particularly in the outlying communities, could not afford adequate equipment and instruction in skiing.” Ford rounded up usable second-hand equipment and had it repaired and distributed to children who needed skis. He also spent “many weekends teaching skiing to the children of Etna, Norwich, and other communities.” In 1942, Ford enlisted in the Army Air Corps while Peggy continued to run the learn-to-ski program. In July of 1944, Ford was killed in a mid-air collision during an air show in Spokane, Washington. Rather than send flowers, a friend suggested that money be donated in Ford’s name to keep the ski school thriving. The demand for the program grew and a community Junior Ski Council was formed to assist Peggy. In 1950, the JSC and the Ford Sayre Memorial Fund merged into the Ford K. Sayre Memorial Ski Council.

Norwich’s Betsy Snite cover of SI 1960

The techniques and philosophy of the program were outlined in the Procedure For Volunteer Instructors packet written in 1950 by Albert Snite, a Norwich resident and father of the future Olympian, Betsy Snite. “The instructor must be willing to recognize some latitude in the pupil’s style,” Snite wrote in the introduction, “but must attempt at the same time to teach the solid fundamentals of skiing. This is a system that… allows for the individual variations from the basics. So don’t worry if your first grade pupil doesn’t look like [an Olympic star] after two weeks of work.” Instructors were encouraged to have “unlimited patience,” and when students were tired, “do something easy to rest them and make it fun.”

Sample’s Jump

In the late 1940s, the Ford Sayre program got rolling in Norwich on the south side of Cemetery Hill. The Altow Ski Area was named after the first owner, Al Peavy: Al’s Tow! The rope tow was powered by a Ford V-8 truck engine. The moving rope circled over auto wheels mounted on posts and towed skiers up the hill. An exciting interlude for a trip up the slope came when the hill flattened. The skier had “to let go of the rope before it went out of reach over one of the wheels, then glide across the flat stretch and grab the top again as it emerged from another wheel at the far side.”

According to Buff McLaughry, who grew up in Norwich, this was a scary moment when he was a five-year-old. “The fear of the middle rope wheel and letting go and grabbing on again was more intimidating then the run downhill!”

As a grade-school student, Bill Aldrich, another longtime Norwich resident, helped sell hot chocolate in the warming hut at the base of the hill, and also operated the rope tow once the adults had fired up the engine. “We would watch the towline for ‘fall offs’ and put the engine in neutral until it was all clear.” Altow ran 1,500 feet from top to bottom and, according to Aldrich, “It would take 3-5 minutes to shush it on a brisk day and maybe 5-7 minutes to ride up.” It cost .50¢ for a half day of skiing and the Ford Sayre Ski School charged $1.50 per winter for ski instruction. No races were held at Altow, but the town’s children learned the basics of skiing on the little run. Altow opened in the late 1940s, and by the 1950s had installed lights for night skiing. Aldrich remembered on night skis, “It was a beautiful scene to look over the town area from the top.” In the early 1950s, the neighboring cemetery spread across the hill, and the Altow Ski Area had to close.

Albert and Elizabeth Snite owned the Altow hill and offered free use of the area to the town. Their daughter Betsy took full advantage of the area. Bill Aldrich remembers her training at Altow in the warmer months. “Betsy ‘ran’ up and down Altow three times per day and to the very top, not the first knoll! After that, she jogged 3-5 miles and finished by doing the hill again!” In the winter, she skied every day. According to Jerry Hickson, Snite’s first Ford Sayre ski instructor, “She was about nine years old and quite eager to ski. Later, when she was in high school, she didn’t race in Ford Sayre races because she was too good, but trained with the Dartmouth ski team.” Betsy kept getting better. She competed in the 1956 Winter Olympics at the age of seventeen. Four years later she won the silver medal in women’s slalom in the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley, California. She made the cover of Sports Illustrated and became the first Olympic medalist from Norwich, Vermont.

Ski Altow poster

Near Altow off of Hopson Road, a 25-meter ski jump was created in the 1950s by David Bradley and Omar Lacasse. It was called Sample’s Hill after the Dartmouth artist-in-residence, Paul Sample who owned the property and lived nearby. Buff McLaughry sped down Sample’s Hill many times as a boy. “The excitement of flying in the air as a kid was incredible,” said Buff. “Jumping was viewed as an extreme sport then. It was the X-Games of its day. Spectators flocked from all over to watch us sail through the air for jumps of even 50 feet. It was really cool.”

“I remember,” said Steven Bradley, son of David Bradley, “the road being lined with cars, and kids carrying long skis.” According to Steven, “The worst (part of jumping) was seeing the guy in front of you crash and come sliding out below in a heap. You never knew if there was some huge divot or a deep rut where you would be landing next.” Steven admitted that he wasn’t the best, but “There were a few local kids who could really lean out on their luck and, once they got a taste of it, were amazing on the big hills. Everyone got their start there.”

Among those who began their skiing and jumping career in Norwich was Jeff Hastings, who competed at the 1984 Olympic Games and finished fourth on the large hill, placing just 2/10ths of a point out of the medals. A neighbor of Hastings was another jumper, Mike Holland. He competed in the 1984 and 1988 Winter Olympics. In 1985 he held the world distance jumping record for 27 minutes before a Finnish jumper passed his mark by one meter. Mike’s brother Joe was the “leading U.S. Nordic combined skier in the late 1980s and early 1990s” and appeared in the 1988 and 1992 Winter Olympics. Not to be outdone, the youngest Holland, Jim, was a ski jumper in the 1992 and 1994 Winter Olympics. Felix McGrath, another Norwich native, was an alpine skier in the 1988 Olympics. Tim Tetreault, who was raised in Norwich, competed in the Nordic Combined in three Olympics during the 1990s. The list goes on and on. In all, Norwich has produced 11 Olympians, highlighted most recently by Hannah Kearney, who brought home a gold medal from the 2010 Vancouver Olympics where she won the women’s moguls event.

Altow rope tow

Articles in The Valley News and The New York Times and a new book, Norwich: One Tiny Vermont Town’s Secret to Happiness and Excellence have recently appeared about Norwich and its abundance of world class winter athletes. The writers have searched for answers to the town’s success in winter sports. And the answers seem elusive. But if you follow the threads, the one thing the athletes have in common is the Ford Sayre program. Hannah Kearney started skiing when she was two and when she reached first grade enrolled in Ford Sayre program. Betsy Snite had a Ford Sayre coach at Altow, the Holland brothers soared at Sample’s Jump and Oak Hill under the watchful eye of David Bradley or another Ford Sayer instructor. Buff McLaughry, a jumping mentor in the Ford Sayer program for 23 years, coached Jim Holland. Whether they started at Altow or the Dartmouth Skiway, Sample’s Jump or Oak Hill, so many young people, whether they went on to be Olympic or recreational skiers, at one time had a volunteer Ford Sayre coach who made skiing exciting, and – most importantly – fun.

Drop by the Norwich Public Library in February to see the Norwich Historical Society’s exhibit on winter sports and the Olympics.

Imagine having your world slowly shrouded in darkness. Once, you were able to see clearly: the snow, the grass, the faces of your loved ones. But then your eyes, your windows into the world, began to cloud over, and you lost sight of that beauty piece by piece. This is the tragedy inflicted by cataracts in the developing world. And the goal of the Himalayan Cataract Project, whose offices include a team right here in Norwich, is to fix it.

The Himalayan Cataract Project, or HCP, was founded in 1995 by two ophthalmologists, Dr. Geoffrey Tabin and Dr. Sanduk Ruit, who pioneered a low-cost, high-volume surgical technique for removing cataracts. This is a technique uninhibited by the need for a hospital, allowing the HCP to treat people located in some of the most remote areas of the world. Originally based out of Burlington and operating under the umbrella of the University of Vermont, they began by focusing on the mountainous Himalaya region, restoring the sight of its residents one surgery at a time. In 1999, though, the organization became its own 501c3 nonprofit and began to grow dramatically until, by 2010, it had a need for regional offices in Waterbury and Norwich.

Founders Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Dr. Geoff Tabin

I got in contact with Communications Manager Angelia Rorison to find out more about what the HCP is achieving out of their Norwich office, and was surprised by the sheer scope. The purpose of the Norwich office, she tells me, is to house the Operations, Finance, and Communications divisions of the HCP. And as such, it features some of the organization’s biggest names.

Emily Newick is the Chief Operating Officer for the HCP, and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the organization, from management of the financial and accounting systems to program oversight and development.

“The direct impact of our work is so compelling to me,” she says. “Restoring sight is dramatic, tangible and miraculous, not to mention DO-ABLE and cost effective. Just imagine your life without sight.”

Jackton Downard serves as the Deputy Director of Operations and Strategic Initiatives for the Himalayan Cataract Project. His role is to support the organization’s growth objectives through budget management, process development, and data crunching.

“I am humbled,” he says, “by how much impact this organization has, and it’s a huge privilege to be able to play a part in building eye care systems in the developing world. Witnessing sight restoring surgeries in Nepal, interacting with the numerous individuals it takes to build an eye hospital in Bhutan, or helping to support the training of Ethiopian ophthalmologists – it’s all very personally rewarding.”

Norwich staff members Angelia Rorison, Jackton Downard, and Emily Newick

“I may be biased,” says Communications Manager Angelia Rorison, whose responsibilities include marketing, communications, and social media, all under the purview of maintaining a consistent brand and message, “but working for the HCP is wonderful. I am constantly amazed by the stories and work that is accomplished by our in-country teams and U.S.-based staff. The best part of my job is sharing those stories and seeing people as moved and inspired by our work as I am.”

Ms. Rorison tells me that having an office in Norwich has allowed the organization to draw employees from Burlington down to the Upper Valley to take advantage of the area’s many resources. They have worked with Tuck School of Business’s First-Year Project, connected with Flannel (formerly of Norwich) to redesign and manage their website, and partnered with the Norwich Bookstore to secure copies of Second Suns (a book by David Oliver Relin detailing the story of the HCP’s founders), to name just a few.

“So many great neighbors,” she says. Ms. Newick adds: “I love the scale of Norwich with its blend of small and big – the best aspects of small town life, coupled with a richness of experience, interests and pursuits amongst its proud residents.”

Today, the HCP conducts high volume campaigns with its partners all across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and has performed over 600,000 successful surgeries, but its job is far from over.

As Co-Founder and Chairman, Dr. Geoff Tabin has stated, “It’s a travesty that we have 18 million people in our world who are needlessly blind that, with a relatively inexpensive operation, can have their life and their sight restored.”

Looking forward, the HCP is taking bold steps into the future. In 2017, it was named one of eight semi-finalists (out of 1,904 applicants) in the MacArthur Foundation’s 100&Change competition. The platform it competed on was a blueprint for eliminating cataract blindness globally, taking the model of effective work done in Nepal, Ethiopia and Ghana, and scaling it up to fit the entire world. Though the HCP did not win the grant, Ms. Rorison tells me the competition nevertheless provided a major endorsement of their work and raised awareness of the solvable global health problem they have committed themselves to. As a result, the HCP team has been galvanized to aim higher than ever before, working alongside their partners on furthering education, direct service, infrastructure, and the creation of sustainable eye care systems in new and innovative ways. And the Norwich office will play an integral role. With Mr. Downard’s focus on growth, Ms. Newick’s role in operations, and Ms. Rorison’s duty of spreading the word, Norwich will be a hub as the HCP’s proven, community-based model of eye care grows to become a global cure.

Imagine that you’ve been living in a world shrouded by darkness, unable to see the people you love. You may have lost your job, your ability to get around by yourself, your confidence. But then, through one simple procedure, the light comes streaming in. How would you feel?

“The joy of sight restoration is a remarkable thing to witness,” says Ms. Rorison, “there is applause, laughter, dancing and tears of happiness. You see someone’s life change in real time.”

With each pair of eyes that are fixed, the world changes in real time, too. And as the Himalayan Cataract Project takes the helm in fixing this problem, we can be sure that there’s a wealth of change to look forward to. And we can know that an indispensable source is right here in our backyard.

In some traditions, it all begins with the Word. In keeping with the power of words, and with the relative rarity of the skill, many ancient cultures revered writing, and honored those who could write and read. Now we’re living through changes that find writing reduced to texting. For words we may substitute acronyms or emojis. Some lament the lack of penmanship training in school, but others say, “Who needs it?” Even keyboarding on a QWERTY typewriter is losing out to double-thumbing on a screen-ette.

Zora Neal Hurston’s quote “She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her” painted by Di Piazza

And then there’s Laura Di Piazza. An artist with an MFA from Goddard College in Plainfield, Laura has bent her artistic interests and talents primarily towards calligraphy. The word means ‘beautiful writing,’ and that’s an exact description of what she mainly does.

“I was exposed to calligraphy purely by chance in seventh grade,” Laura says. “I was in an inner-city school in Brooklyn that offered an Italic calligraphy course for only one academic year. My teacher was very kind, patient and she provided me with plenty of guidance and encouragement to pursue calligraphy beyond her class.” Laura continued her interest in calligraphy, keeping it as a hobby into her twenties, while she engaged in the common post-college mix of jobs. In her case,i the mix included working in a sleep lab, and doing publicity for SAG (the Screen Actors Guild). “I offered calligraphy on the side,” she recalls cheerfully, “and it kept growing. After a while there was no time for a day job.”

She produced material for corporate events, weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and so forth. “That kept me very busy, but I cut back when I became a mother,” she says. Her daughter Alice was born in 2005, and her twins, Harry and Lucy, in 2007. The family moved to Norwich in 2008.

Teaching There and Here

en Berger, Laura Di Piazza, & Rebecca Levy at Levi’s exhibition Queering the Line curated by Di Piazza at UVM

In addition to producing calligraphy, Laura teaches classes and workshops. She’s spread her skills over a wide area in this way, though the classes are necessarily small. In the Upper Valley, she’s taught calligraphy at Dartmouth, Artistree, POST and AVA, and has given workshops in Europe, but mostly she teaches in New York, for Society of Scribes, commuting down for a weekend. She enjoys getting a fix of city life, but she likes returning to the Upper Valley. She says, “It’s very relaxed here. You don’t ever have to worry about crime, and the air is so clean! And here people aren’t as showy.” (We certainly don’t pretend to dress in a league with the New York art scene!) Laura herself radiates a winning combination of style and the hominess of a mom and of a special needs teacher, a calling she also pursues. Herself a mix of cultures – her father is an Italian-American from Brooklyn, and her mother is Eritrean – she blends the beauties of both races.

Taking Time, Creating Focus

“There’s a movement to ‘slow’ activities,” Laura points out. “People are so immersed in the fast-paced digital world, but they want a respite. There’s definitely a comeback to pen and ink.” Ironically, that digital world provides access to slow arts like calligraphy. “Lots of people are learning online,” she adds. “The internet has made this ancient art form popular. Video is very important. It’s helpful to see it being done.”

Modern calligraphers use an oblique penholder that enables them to set the nib at the appropriate angle for pointed pen calligraphy. Laura mostly letters copperplate, a flowing style characterized by thicker down-strokes (written with more pressure on the nib), and delicate fine hairlines elsewhere. The script offers great opportunities for decorative flourishes.

Exhibiting and Curating

Road Map, 2014, acrylic & ink

Sometimes Laura’s calligraphy is part of a show by another artist. For example, in a recent exhibition called Office of Unreplied Emails – by international artist Camille Henrot, exhibited in Berlin, Germany, and Paris, France – Laura created calligraphic versions of the poetic and philosophical responses that Henrot designed as answers to alarmist fundraising emails.

Laura occasionally mounts a show of her own work, both calligraphic and abstract. Some of her paintings include words, and other pieces seem to convey information in an unknown script, as though they were maps or chip designs. She currently has an exhibition, Vox Somnium, at Northern Stage (through May 23). “My point,” she says, “is to showcase work that is not ordinary, that you could possibly see in a dream, and in a dream it would make sense.” In November and December of 2018, the Norwich Library will host a display of Laura’s calligraphic work.

Laura also curates exhibitions of other artists’ work. “I like someone’s work, so I say ‘Let’s show it somewhere.’ I kind of match-make artists with venues and media outlets, selecting works and how they’re displayed. It’s so much easier [for the artist] when someone else is doing this, or helping.” She has curated exhibitions at, for example, UVM and Vermont Law School.

Passing on the Gift

“My favorite show,” says Laura, “was the one I curated last spring at the Norwich Public Library. It was a display of work by elementary school students in Vermont and New Hampshire.” Students from as far as Lempster and Woodstock saw their work professionally displayed, thanks to a grant from the Byrne Foundation to help with framing costs. The opening reception didn’t need champagne to have plenty of fizz – and Laura knows from her own experience how taking a young person’s artistic efforts seriously can change lives.

Watch Laura craft this calligraphy at www.vimeo.com/81937507.