Ken Fitzkee and Liam Terry work as a team for Jancewicz & Son Roofing in North Walpole, NH. Ken lives right there in town; Liam lives just across The Connecticut River in Bellows Falls. Ken is what the company calls a Project Manager who gets the initial workorder from management but from that point on these two roofers-craftsmen work together out of a two-seater company truck. (Each day the company sends out seven or eight roofing crews, one insulation crew, and five or six carpentry crews ranging from two to six guys each day.) They work throughout southern Vermont, Northern Massachusetts,and Eastern NH, pretty much within a 1 ½ hr. driving radius from North Walpole.

In 1982, then Windham County Sheriff Bill Graham hired Holly Ellis as a part-time dispatcher. Graham would have known Holly as a girl because he had grown up with her father in Putney. In fact, Holly’s father, Ken Ellis from Putney (and her mother Shirley Stomberg - originally from Wisconsin), were both well-known to Sherrif Graham growing up. So, in 1982, when the previous day-shift dispatcher, Nancy Kent, moved up to the Office Manager position, Graham hired Holly to replace Kent full-time. In May, 2024, 42 years later, Holly will soon be retiring from her role as an administrative assistant in the Sheriff’s Department now located on Old Ferry Road.

Lisa (Patno) Bianconi was born in Rutland, Vermont in 1963. In 1981 she graduated from high school there, having been deeply engaged in music, band choir and debate and athletics. Four years later she earned a degree from Norte Dame College in Manchester, NH in 1985 with a Bachelor’s degree in music education. In 1989 she  earned a Master of Education from Keene State College. At 21 years old,  Lisa looked for work in music education and in two weeks or so accepted the job as the Music Director at Kurn Hattin Homes for Children in Westminster, VT.  She’s still teaching with passion there after 39 years.

Daisy (Goldschmid) Unsicker was born in 1976 on Daigle Road in Westminster where her mother Raine Kaine (her father is Tom Goldschmid.) had planted lovely perennial beds all around their home. Even before Daisy started first grade at the Westminster West School – where Claire Oglesby and this writer’s wife, Mary Hayward, were her teachers in grades 1-4  – she helped her Mom with flowers as well as their family’s large vegetable garden. 

Imagine you’re in your late 60’s. You’re living in calm, quiet, woodsy Marlboro with your husband. You’ve just retired from a professional life teaching art at the college level. Your two daughters in their late 30’s are living happy, productive lives here in the Northeast. Everything is coming up roses. 

 “We drove schoolbuses and got our kids safely to school.” That’s what Sandy McDermid, now 76, and her husband Archie, now 83, both told me they had done for a living – both now retired.

Deborah Stanford describes her life as a series of abrupt pivots.  She grew up in Greenwich Village in New York City with an actress mother, Anita Cipriani, who exposed her to the vast cultural opportunities that existed for artists and performers.  “When I was growing up, we did not own a television.  My mother insisted that I read the classics.  She instilled in me a love of literature.  And she demanded that I always strive for more than I achieved.” Deborah’s mother was a hard taskmaster – a mix of stern and loving.  “She referred to me as ‘My daughter, the doctor” or ‘My daughter, the lawyer.’” Having faced discrimination as a black woman, Anita was determined that her child would never be considered second best.

Ryan Golding, now 46 years of age, owns Mastaler Cleaning Service in Brattleboro. His office is adjacent to WTSA's with glorious views out over the Retreat Meadows and The West River.

Isaac was born Feb 25, 1995 and spent the first four months of his life in an incubator having been born prematurely. He grew up in public housing – known as The Projects - in Woodside, Queens. Roughly 25 years later, he now has a BA from Landmark College in Putney, an MA from The University of Phoenix, and, having overcome his own learning disabilities, he is now Assistant Director of Social Coaching within the Department of Programming and Social Coaching at Landmark College in Putney, VT.  He helps neuro-diverse students find their way in the social world of young adulthood and their first year of college 

In 1980, Claire Wilson, a refined and soft-spoken Quaker - now in her 90’s and still living in Putney - met at the home of Paul and Dorothea Stockwell in West Brattleboro with a group of twelve or so folks interested in starting a spinnery. It would be a small business that would refine raw sheep’s wool into fine yarn. David Richie, now 80 with 35 years of his life invested in The Spinnery, was in that meeting. He recalls Claire saying “Why do we have sheep up here in the hills of Vermont but we have nothing to show for it?”

“In October, 2017, my husband David and I were sitting on Elliot Street on Gallery Walk one Friday evening in Brattleboro – a beautiful October evening: food trucks, kids running around, teenagers and parents. This is where I could tend my own garden: my, ourcommunity. I decided right then and there I would start interviewing people in SE Vermont. I would set up my own radio show on BCTV to celebrate this remarkable corner of the world. I’d call the show simply “Here We Are.”

Starting when he moved from NYC to Putney after 9/11, Julian McBrowne has worked as a sound engineer quietly behind the scenes at music performances here in SE Vermont: Yellow Barn, Next Stage in Putney, Eugene Uman’s Vermont Jazz Center, for Becky Graber and the Brattleboro Womens' Chorus or Friends of Music at Guilford.….. Before 9/11, he was a sound engineer working across England, Europe, even Japan.

Fourteen movie theaters in Vermont are still operating, albeit on a shoestring. On Nov 9, 2024, The Big Picture Theater and Café in Waitsfield closed. Merrill’s Roxy Cinema in Burlington closed a week or so later. The theater in Manchester, VT closed in 2019. The Flagship Cinemas in Rutland closed in 2020 due to the pandemic and never reopened. The Latchis in Brattleboro and the Opera House in Bellows Falls are two of the fourteen still fruitfully operating in the state.

Fred Homer lives up a back road in Williamsville. He’s 85 and is married to Deb Feiner, a physical therapist practicing cranio-sacral therapy. Their two children are married and live away. But today, Fred and Deb share their home and have for years with a 13-year-old Barred Owl named Stella along with other recuperating rescue birds in rescue cages out in the barn or basement.

Mike Labine is now in training to become farm manager at Vermont Shepherd Cheese in Westminster West. He was born in 1992 in a very different world:  Darien, Connecticut, one of the goldcoast suburbs in ready reach of NYC. But what captured his imagination and heart as a young boy was a 100-acre parkland near his home. He roamed and played in that parkland as a boy and remembers seeing a dinosaur. It was a place that fired his imagination.

On September 11, 2023, Katy Emond opened her childcare center called The PUMPKIN PATCH in what was The Putney Inn and Restaurant. Three children were enrolled that day.  As of early October, 2024, 43 are now enrolled and she now has earned a licensed capacity of 59. These children are from 39 families living in Putney, Dummerston, Brattleboro, Westminster and Bellows Falls. Through sheer force of will this high-powered woman and equally energetic husband Josh Emond have answered the needs of families for childcare, a service that frees those parents to work during the day while also offering their children care and early education.

Up until late August, 2024, eighteen year old Django Grace lived his whole life on Williams Street in Brattleboro with his parents Zak Grace, his mother Jana Zeller and his younger brother Desi (who, like Django, will graduate from BUHS). Django graduated in June of this year, giving a heartfelt and dramatic graduation address to his class and families.

Apple/ginger/raspberry pie is River’s favorite, but then there’s apple, blueberry or pumpkin pies when each is in season around Putney. Then there’s chocolate cream pies and decorated cakes parents order for kids’ birthdays or for any kind of celebration. “And we get delirious around here at Thanksgiving and Christmas.” And who is we? River and her mother Katie Rice. They are both bakers (Katie is also a supervisor) for the owners of The Putney General Store – Mike and Kim Cosco right there in the center of town.

Kevin Gordon lives in Putney. He’s 61, a slim, wiry guy with a blue Jeep Wrangler and a motorcycle out back. He gets out of bed around 11:30 at night after a normal 8-hour sleep and drives a few miles down Rte 5 to the C and S Wholesale Grocers delivery docks. Around 1:00, he begins another night’s driving into New England delivering palletized groceries. He’s been driving the big rigs since 1987.