Editor’s Note: For a few years now, the Norwich Times has been featuring our young people thinking, doing, and living outside the box. Rather than follow the traditional four-years-of-high-school on to four-years-of-college route, these adventurous souls are recognizing that there are many paths, and that some may lead to a whole new world to explore. Read about Abby Dole, Maisie MacMillen, and Cleo Roback as they tell us about their exciting and humbling travels to distant lands.

Abby enjoying the sights in Paris

Abby Dole

I began the fall of 2017 in Boulder, Colorado, working to save up for my travels, hiking, and living with my sister. After 4 months in Boulder, I went to Tamarindo, Costa Rica for three months in order to learn Spanish and surfing. There, I went to an International language school called EF (Education First) and stayed with a host family, taking Spanish lessons in the morning and surfing in the afternoons. I spent my weekends going on road trips with friends driving to different beaches and mountains around Costa Rica. While on these excursions, I came face to face with a sloth, a whale, and many monkeys, but the most exciting meeting was when Maisie MacMillen came to visit me in Tamarindo!

From there, I also travelled to Nicaragua to climb the Cerro Negro volcano and see the capital city of Managua. After my three months in Latin America, I went to Paris, France for two months, where I took French classes at the same language school (EF), staying with a host family again. While in Paris, I took a side trip and visited Frankfurt, Germany.

I returned to the USA at the end of May, and will start school at UVM in September. This year I tasted some amazing food, met incredible people, and got to do so many unforgettable things. After a big year, I’m excited to be back home in Norwich!

Cleo Roback

I had known I wanted to take a gap year ever since I became familiar with the term at the beginning of my high school career. And once the summer after my high school graduation started to fade away, I became more and more excited to finally make my own adventure and learn my own way.

When I first arrived in Rincón, Puerto Rico I had a mission in mind and a whole lot of excited energy. My travel partner, Liam Gurman, and I became interns for ARF, a local Puerto Rican animal rescue foundation. In our 3 months on the island we rescued, vetted and sent out over 200 dogs to their forever homes both on the island and to the states.

We also participated in three mass sterilization and vaccination clinics which is a vital step in ending the street dog problem in Puerto Rico.

We got to work alongside some amazing individuals during these projects such as Miriam Perez, the ARF president who stops at nothing to protect her morals and her animals. Dr. Cruz, the only licensed mass sterilization veterinarian on the island along with his mobile clinic able to arrive at all sides of the island for animals in need and the students and staff at the Jorge Seda Crespa Middle school where we hosted our monthly dog club. I felt so lucky to be surrounded with such an intelligent and passionate team. It made the monumental task we chose to take on that much more possible.

When I first set out I thought I was going to come back with a tan, hopefully a puppy (or two), and a great experience. But I gained so much more. Life lessons learned the hard way. Responsibility to myself and others, honesty, and resilience. More than anything I am now feeling more inspired, re-energized and motivated than ever to tackle my freshman year  at Hampshire College.

Maisie MacMillen

I first knew I wanted to take a gap year after I was fortunate enough to attend The Island School the fall of my junior year. I attended The Island School for a transformative 100 days and it was after I returned home that I knew traveling abroad and stepping outside my comfort zone was where I shined and grew the most. With my parents on board, I put the college process aside, something not many teenagers and parents feel is an option, and focused on how to make this next year equally as transformative.

It was hard for me to sit back and live day to day, and not plan weeks in advance. In order to make money for my travels, the first thing on the agenda was to find a summer job. I moved to Little Compton, Rhode Island to become a nanny to four kids aged 3-7. This was a good introduction to “being on my own.”

During the fall, I lived at home and continued to earn money to fund the travel I hoped to do later in the year. I researched volunteer programs of interest such as childcare, environmental work, and nursing. I decided I wanted to travel to Central America as it has a warm climate and is more affordable than some other parts of the world.

I found a national volunteer program called IVHQ that connects people with Non Government Organizations (NGOs) in the country of choice. My first assignment was at a childcare center in San José, Costa Rica. While there, I stayed with a host family who spoke little English. The center in which I volunteered was located in the second poorest village in the city. Attending the center everyday allowed these children to experience the fun, laughter, and love that they deserve.

After two weeks, I moved on to a turtle conservation project to gain experience in a broader range of volunteer work. After riding in two extremely crowded, hot buses for a total of 6 hours to the Nicoya Peninsula, I ended up in a town called Junquillal, population 400. Dirt roads, beautiful beaches, The Verdiazul turtle camp, two hotels, a corner store and a larger grocery store was about it in the town. Verdiazul is an all-volunteer organization aiming to protect endangered sea turtles. Our days consisted of doing beach cleanups, nursery tree work, hatchery work, or general maintenance on camp. At night we walked the entire stretch of Playa Junquillal (about 5 miles) in two-hour shifts. Our goal was to find turtles laying their eggs or to find current nests and collect those eggs and bring them back to the hatchery. Bringing the eggs back to the hatchery and digging a man-made nest for them increases the hatch rate tremendously. In the hatchery, they are protected from poachers, dogs, birds, the sun, and tourists. I spent 3 weeks at Verdiazul and it was here that I met other like-minded people and found a cause I care deeply about. I was able to be fully present and believe I was making a positive difference.

My next structured plan was to participate in a program in Santo Domingo, The Dominican Republic, for 2 weeks through a company called Gap Medics. Gap Medics creates intern opportunities in the medical field. During my time in the DR, I had the privilege of shadowing a nurse in one of the local hospitals. The hospital was very underdeveloped and vastly different than what I was used to. Each day we were in a different wing of the hospital shadowing Nurse Carla as she did procedures, took vitals and helped out in operating rooms. She always took the time to explain what she was doing and how the health care systems worked in the DR. This was an eye-opening experience and convinced me to study nursing at UVM this coming fall.

I am looking forward to doing my final gap year travels with my sister this summer, and am extremely grateful for my solo travels and for all of the people I met and the places I experienced. To all of you future high school graduates, I highly recommend taking a gap year!

Residents of Norwich: Have you seen a man blowing giant bubbles larger than a five-year-old at Marion Cross School? Or did you notice in the town picture that one of the residents has on a massive Bernie Sanders Puppet head? Perhaps maybe at Dan and Whit’s last year, you noticed an out-of-the-ordinary housing ad? It wasn’t on a white, 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, but a colorful 3D cardboard cut-out featuring bees, ukuleles, chickens, a red Canadian Maple leaf, and individually drawn portraits of a family of four. They were seeking a house in Norwich by July 1st, which was clearly noted as Canada Day.

These were the works of master hobbyist and founder of Make Your Own Fun, Dr. Ken Leslie.

For the curious, yes the search was successful, and Ken, along with his wife Shannon and two sons Journey and Phoenix, recently moved to a house upon the steep Glen Ridge Road. As for the focus on Canada, they are not exuberant Canadophiles, but actual Canadiens.

Although he grew up in Ontario, he and his family were living on the islands of Haida Gwaii off the coast of British Columbia before moving to Norwich over two years ago for his job as a consumer neuroscientist at Merchant Mechanics, located one mile south of Hanover. With an impressive academic background, this is not Ken’s first time in the Upper Valley. After earning a Neuroscience PhD at Brandeis University, he came to Dartmouth to do a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychological and Brain Sciences in the early 2000s with Dr. Mike Gazzaniga.

Although this was before marriage and starting a family, Ken has always been an active participant in Upper Valley life. If you’ve seen anyone sporting the stylish Upper Valley zip-up hoodies sold at Revolution in White River Junction, Ken was the original designer. He was also a pioneer and editor of the uvScene.com, an early social media website that promoted face-to-face community by hosting events, including dances and creative fundraisers, many of them hosted at the now defunct India Queen restaurant in Hanover. In some ways the uvScene could be thought of as a precursor to the functions of DailyUV.com or the Upper Valley VT/NH Facebook page.

Make Your Own Fun is Ken’s website (myof.org) that features his hobbies and creations while encouraging others to take part as well. From animation to beat boxing to creating giant puppets, there appears to be few things he’s unable to do. In his words, Make Your Own Fun is about using the power of play to create optimal conditions for learning, relaxation, and enjoyment while building community and promoting well being.

As eluded, his hobbies aren’t something that live only inside the confines of his home. He’s dazzled with giant bubble shows at the Montshire and has run the kids zone at music festivals in Canada and the US. At events, he goes by Dr. Ken, a factually accurate nickname bestowed to him during his post doc days by a friend who had yet to receive his PhD. Initially it annoyed him, but when he needed a stage name, he conceded it had a nice ring.

Ken’s infamous bubble blowing prowess started just before his older son Journey was born, initially learning from YouTube videos. When bubbling, he’s often dressed in a colorful costume such as a paint covered overcoat and hat. In action, he looks almost like a wizard casting gentle spells with his bubble wand. If one giant bubble isn’t whimsical enough, he can even blow bubbles within bubbles.

Bubbles are endless fun that kids love to chase, and will force even the most hardened adults to crack a smile. As to what’s special about bubbles, Ken says “they teach embracing the impermanent.” Bubbles are ephemeral. There’s a beauty in their aimless trajectory and fleeting existence.

Ken is a fervent advocate of making your own fun. Fun doesn’t have to come via a brand new toy from Walmart. The box itself can provide superior entertainment. That’s why one of his favorite mediums to work with is cardboard. “It’s the ultimate toy” says Ken. It’s free and can be constructed into nearly anything. Kids love it because it can be easily drawn and painted upon. He turned his son Phoenix’s stroller into a Tesla tractor (sadly they don’t actually exist) for an organic farming event, and if you think a cardboard Christmas tree wouldn’t achieve sufficient holiday spirit, you’d feel otherwise upon seeing the tree in his house. But as fun as cardboard is for creation, so is its destruction. It can be controllably burned, and there are few things more enjoyable than watching the glow of fire.

Music is also a passionate hobby of his. As a child he took formal training on the violin; now he’s self-taught on the ukulele. He realized that if you make a sound, and enjoy the sound, then you’re playing it right. All of this leads to a feedback loop that leads to mastery and, most importantly, the enjoyment of making music. He’ll walk around Dan and Whit’s strumming the ukulele, creating a stress-free environment for shoppers searching for socks and stewed tomatoes. During the holiday season, he and a friend spent Saturday mornings at the Norwich Post Office, relaxing the frenzied employees and customers by playing Christmas carols.

As if creating a giant Bread and Puppet-style Bernie Sanders head wasn’t enough of an artistic challenge, in the future, Ken is  looking to enhance his crafts by further refining his technique, and moving more toward the fine arts. On the wall in his living room is a current work-in-progress: a giant puppet self-portrait. He intends to have it ready for the Unifier Music Festival (unifierfestival.com) in Tolland, MA this Solstice (June 22-24), and is engineering it so it can blow bubbles.

He considers his Make Your Own Fun activities to be his form of cultural currency. A way of spreading enjoyment while also bringing community together to have and share sweet experiences. He recalls a particularly warming moment back in British Columbia; a renegade bubble floated upward in the sky seemingly forever, and everyone stopped what they were doing to watch.

There are moments when he starts to feel a twinge of self-consciousness over his colorful dressing style when among more traditionally dressed crowds, but ultimately he’s a supporter of self-expression. He wants kids to understand that “we don’t all have to be cookie cutter. If you want to play your ukulele and blow bubbles on the playground, you can do that.” In other words, don’t stop doing what you want to do just because you fear being the weird kid.

When it comes to life in Norwich, he’s grateful for the warm and welcome embrace his family has received from the town. Upon originally moving to the Upper Valley as a single adult, he was primarily focused on creating community with the other young and single adults. However, now as a father, he’s looking to connect with the other parents and children. The proverbial saying may be that it takes a village to raise a child, but Ken says, “we all need the village.”

Correction: We made an error on Dave’s information last time and wanted to fix it. Enjoy getting to know him!

What brought you to Norwich?
I grew up in Hanover. In 2007, my wife Kate and I relocated back to the area, in part to raise kids, get away from city living, and be close to family.

What’s your favorite hang-out in Norwich?
Norwich Racquet Club… paddle/platform tennis

Favorite way to spend a snowy day in Norwich?
Nothing’s better than enjoying a few hours of snowshoeing or sledding, and snowball fights with Kate, the twins, and our two black labs Carlo and Coco

What fictional place would you like to visit?
Asgard. That’d be cool. I’m still a big Marvel fan.

What skill would you like to master?
Typing. I’m still using the two-finger method.

What would be your first question after waking up from a 100-year sleep?
Did the Patriots win?

What is your ideal way to spend a weekend in Norwich?
Huntley Meadows is a great venue… tennis, soccer, baseball… being outside.

What is the best way to start the day?
Coffee is the best, perhaps essential these days.

What weird food combinations do you really enjoy?
As a kid, peanut butter and salami sandwiches. What was cool when you were younger, but not now?
8-tracks, Spam, hacky sack

What is your favorite movie from childhood?
Hard to say… this goes back to early eighties. I’d have to go with Caddyshack. It’s still a classic today.

What is your motto in life?
Work hard, play hard, be positive.

Does your life have a theme song? If so, what is it?
Cats in the Cradle always reminds me to make time for my family.

If you could save or protect one animal, plant or part of our earth, which would it be?
The Great Barrier Reef; that’s where I met my wife.

What did you want to be when you grew up?
Something in medicine like my father, but to be honest, it took me 30 years to figure that out, before I went back to school for physical therapy.

What is your favorite quote?
“When I liberate others, I liberate myself… Nobody is free ‘til everybody is free.” Fanny Lou Hamer (c.1964)

Wine, beer, martini or tea?
Green Earl Grey tea, River Roost IPAs

If you could erase one day in history which would it be?
The day Goodman, Cheney and Schwerner were assassinated in Mississippi, summer 1964.

What song most describes your life right now?
Ella’s Song: Sweet Honey in the Rock. “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes….”

What do you love most about living in Vermont?
The people, the seasons, the topography, and the accessibility of people here.

If you had to give away 50% of your assets today, how/where would you distribute them?
To take care of my family, and Vermont Progressive Party, Rural Vermont, Highlander Center, Center for Constitutional Rights, Healthcare for All, Migrant Justice.

What advice would you give the next generation?
Stay alert, study history to understand the present, and work for peace and freedom for all. Keep a sense of humor. Sing.

In general, do you follow, break or create the rules?
Depends on the rules.

Where in Norwich do you spend most of your time?
All over town, biking in the warm weather, or gardening in my backyard

Where would you prefer to spend most of your time?
In Vermont, but I like to travel when I can.

Describe Norwich in one word or phrase.
Norwich is a mostly white, beautiful, upper-middle class town with interesting, talented, opinionated people, a lively culture, and a fantastic public library.

To which local business are you loyal to and why?
The Hanover Co-op and Upper Valley Food Co-op. I believe in cooperative businesses, Zuzu, USPS, King Arthur, Norwich Bookstore, Dan and Whit’s.

Which superpowers would you choose and what good would you do with them?
The power to eliminate Lyme ticks and bring universal health care to the world.

Name one thing you want to add to Norwich.
More people of color

What is your favorite quote?
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food; An Eater’s Manifesto

If you could be invisible for a day, where would you be?
In the kitchens of my CSA members, watching them feed our vegetables to their families, and listening to their memories of gardens and cooking from their childhoods.

Wine, beer, martini or tea?
Morning: Earl Grey. Evening: Long Trail

What Disney character would you be and why?
Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, because she is adventurous and inquisitive, and a little bit accident-prone!

What song most describes your life right now?
John Denver’s Thank God I’m a Country [Girl]

What do you love most about living in Vermont?
I am a fourth generation Vermonter, and I love being part of that history. When I am on our farm – planting seeds, feeding the animals, eating sweet corn straight from the stalk, or tinkering on our 1950’s tractor – I feel like I’ve added myself to a long lineage of Vermont agrarians. I also love the Vermont landscape. I’ve had the experience several times recently where I was looking through a friend’s travel photos of some exotic place. As we flip through them on their phone, we come to the end and suddenly pictures of their Vermont home or daily commute pop up, and I can’t help but exclaim that those pictures are just as – or even more –beautiful than the exotic ones!

If you had to give away 50% of your assets today, how/where would you distribute them?
The list serve!

What famous person would you take with you on a world tour?
E.O.Wilson, so he could teach me about the flora and fauna of every place we visited, and help me
zoom in on the small micro-climates and ecosystems that aren’t immediately obvious.

What advice would you give the next generation?
Go outside. Learn a second (and third) language. Don’t quit piano lessons.

Describe Norwich in one word or phrase.
Privileged, in both the best and worst senses of the word, equally.

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.

When you live in a small town, it’s all about community – and when you work in a small-town bank, you’d better love the idea of community. That’s what makes the Norwich branch of Mascoma Savings Bank a great match for Jamie Kenyon. “I’ve been in banking for the past seven and a half years, but just came to Mascoma in August.” Jamie explains, “I think my favorite part of my job has been the friendly atmosphere in town, and in our branch. We work as a team here, and I like that.”

Originally from out of state, Jamie moved to Vermont four years ago and has settled in Wilder. She loves spending time with her son and two step-children. She’s active in their schools and has enjoyed volunteering there. As a parent volunteer, she’s helped with crafting activities, field day and even an outing to the Tunbridge Fair. She’s not sure what’s next on her volunteer calendar but she’s looking forward to it!

When she gets a break from work and family, Jamie is an avid reader. She enjoys romances, crime stories, thrillers and mystery stories. When asked, she had a hard time nailing down a favorite book, “How about favorite authors instead? Blake Pierce, Nicholas Sparks, Heather Huffman, James Patterson… just to name a few.” As a teen, she collected Chicken Soup for the Soul books and still has them to this day, which might explain her positive outlook on life.

It wasn’t so hard to find a favorite children’s book, though. She’s shared her love of reading with her children and together they’ve enjoyed Roald Dahl’s BFG and B.J. Novak’s The Book With No Pictures.” We suspect that she’ll pass the cold, winter months in Vermont happily with a reliable book by her side.

If you stop by the bank, you may find Jamie in training as a Personal Banker, which is a new title for her. She’s completed her teller training at Mascoma and is now working on the other aspects of job. So far, training has been going well and Jamie said “I’m here to help and look forward to providing folks with the best service possible.” As far as the future plans are concerned, she’s looking forward to “staying happy and taking life day by day.”