Seven Days, May 13, 2020 by Seven Days

ON THE MOVE Students’ return raises concerns

VE RMO NT ’S IN DEPE NDEN T VO IC E MAY 13-20, 2020 VOL.25 NO.33 SEVENDAYSVT.COM

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Envisioning Vermont’s post-pandemic future BY PAUL HEINTZ, PAGE 32

GLASS HALF FULL

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Booze sales up amid quarantine

ONE FOR THE AGES

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109-year-old recalls 1918 pandemic

HUNGER STRIKES

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Food insecurity grows in Vermont

VERMONT FARMERS MARKETS: VERMONT FARMERS MARKETS:

LOCAL AS USUAL, SAFER THAN EVER.

Many farmers markets will be opening soon, but it’s not business as usual! Vendors and market staff are required to follow state guidance to ensure the safest environment for shoppers and vendors alike. Please be patient with vendors and market staff as they are doing their best to comply with the guidance and still be able to offer local products to their communities.

WHAT TO EXPECT AT FARMERS MARKETS THIS SEASON: ¢ Everyone will be happy ¢ Check the market

to see you! Despite all the changes and new rules, markets will still be the place to see smiling eyes, from a safe distance, and get fresh local products.

website/social media to learn how to order in advance. In some cases there will be a list of vendors, in others an online ordering system.

¢ SNAP/EBT will still be

accepted! Other forms of market currency will vary market to market.

Bring a face mask, and wash your hands when

you get there. Vendors and market staff are required to wear protective equipment. Vendor booths will not be self-serve. Only vendors are allowed to handle their products. You will verbally tell the vendor your choices and they will place it in a bag for you.

Most produce will be pre-bagged to limit the number of people who have handled your food. Vendors

may also be packaging and pricing products in ways that reduce the need to make change. Prepared food will be sold, but will be prepackaged and must be consumed off-site.

be one entrance and one exit, and traffic will flow oneway through the market. Stay home if you are unwell or may have been exposed to the virus.

The layout of the market will be different. There will

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WEEK IN REVIEW MAY 6-13, 2020 COMPILED BY GILLIAN ENGLISH, SASHA GOLDSTEIN & MATTHEW ROY

emoji that CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT

COURTESY OF MARY SULLIVAN

Champlain and Saint Michael’s colleges each held virtual graduation ceremonies over the weekend. Pomp amid circumstance.

COWABUNGA

Reps. Johannah Donovan (left) and Mary Sullivan

STATEHOUSE SEATING FOR FOUR

Rep. Johannah “Joey” Leddy Donovan (D-Burlington), an influential liberal who has served in Montpelier for 20 years, will not seek reelection in November. “You always want to leave of your own volition, before someone’s helping you out the door,” Donovan told Seven Days on Monday. “So I think this is a good time for me to leave.” Donovan, 75, said she was gearing up for her reelection campaign in a COVID-19 world when she realized she’d accomplished a lot and was ready to move on. “Last week, all of a sudden I just woke up one morning and realized, You know, I think I’m done,” Donovan said. The retired teacher comes from a politically accomplished family. Donovan’s father, Bernard Leddy, was a judge in the U.S. District Court in Vermont from 1966 to 1972. Her brother James Leddy served Chittenden County as a state senator from 1998 to 2006. And her son, T.J. Donovan, was elected attorney general in 2016 after serving as state’s attorney for Chittenden County. The news follows last month’s announcement by fellow Rep. Mary Sullivan (D-Burlington) that she would step down after 16 years in the state legislature.

SALLY POLLAK

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From left: Meghan St. Pierre, Elle Purrier and Megan Terrell of Pleasant Valley Farms

The departures of Donovan and Sullivan, as well as the decisions by Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/PChittenden) and Sen. Debbie Ingram (D-Chittenden) to run for lieutenant governor this year, represent significant turnover in the county’s influential delegation in Montpelier. Donovan and Sullivan are seatmates representing Burlington’s South End in the 6-5 District. Three people have announced their candidacies for the two House seats: Jesse Paul Warren, who runs a South End nonprofit called Democracy Creative; Scott Pavek, who manages the Catamount Commitment program at the University of Vermont; and energy consultant Gabrielle Stebbins. Donovan’s successor will serve in uncertain times. Legislating via Zoom isn’t as satisfying as working beneath the golden dome, she said. “I think there’s an awful lot that’s lost,” Donovan said. “It sure isn’t the same as having discussions in those small committee rooms with the public and different advocates sitting on the sides and just being able to have really thorough discussions.” Read Kevin McCallum’s full story and keep up with developments at sevendaysvt.com.

A judge tossed a lawsuit that accused Ben & Jerry’s of falsely claiming its ice cream comes from “happy” cows. Total bull, apparently.

DEAD END?

The City of Burlington now expects construction on the Champlain Parkway to begin in March 2021. The project’s been kicked down the road since the 1960s.

ECON 101

The University of Vermont has said layoffs are possible as it attempts to balance an ever-shrinking budget. Tuition is already sky-high.

That’s how many New England Emmy nominations Vermont PBS received for “excellence in video content.” Congrats!

TOPFIVE

Online Now

COLUMNS 28 30 56 58 77

WTF Retail Therapy Soundbites Album Reviews Ask the Reverend

We have

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SECTIONS

Eva Sollberger and James Buck check in with SUPPORTED BY: Vermonters who have returned to work as the pandemic lingers, including Williston builder Todd Townsend; Chris Conant, co-owner of Claussen’s Florist, Greenhouse & Perennial Farm in Colchester; and staff at the Milton Diner and Leunig’s Bistro & Café.

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

Find a new job in the classifieds section on page 60 and online at sevendaysvt.com/jobs.

5/11/20 11:56 AM

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FROM THE PUBLISHER

What Next?

LLY

ONNE

ROB D

What will life look like on the other side of the coronavirus pandemic? Will we shed our sweats and return to the office? Stroll mask-free downtown? When can we gather en masse to watch movies, hear music? No one has definitive answers to these questions — including the 15 thoughtful Vermonters who share their observations, worries and predictions in this week’s cover story, “After the Fire.” The ambiguity before us is unprecedented — and fascinating, perhaps, if you are lucky enough to be healthy and have a job that is secure, safe and can be done remotely. But if you’re a local business owner, it’s torture. Resurrecting even the smallest commercial enterprise requires planning, money and marketing — and some sectors of the economy have been called back to work with scant notice. Vermont real estate agents found out on a Friday that they could return to work after the weekend. Golf courses got a single day’s warning. On Monday, Gov. Phil Scott announced that retail stores could reopen one week hence, provided they limit the number of customers to 25 percent of capacity. They’ve got seven days to rehire and train workers who, thanks to a federal supplement to state unemployment benefits, could be making more money by not working than they did in their previous — and now significantly more dangerous — jobs. For that and other reasons, not every local merchant will be able to reopen immediately. To assist, this week Seven Days built and launched an online directory to get the word out about who’s selling what and how — in person and online. We recommend checking the local Register before shopping on Amazon. Let’s keep those dollars here, where we need them, instead of sending them to Jeff Bezos. Meanwhile, restaurants are eagerly awaiting guidance that has yet to come. In a recent email, Penny Cluse Café chef-owner Charles Reeves put the delay dilemma in perspective: “Purchasing, training, prepping, teching up will all take time, and we’d like to hit the ground running when we safely get the green light,” he wrote. “Even just to hear ‘not before June 15’ would frame things significantly.” Assuming they get back up and running, restaurants face another challenge: Can they make enough money to operate while meeting anticipated social-distancing requirements? Last weekend a coalition of local restaurateurs started circulating a petition calling for “easily accessible direct aid” to prevent an estimated one-third of Vermont’s food establishments from going under. Seven Days has been reporting the news nonstop through the pandemic. But the difficulties of our fellow businesses imperil our media company, which depends almost entirely on advertising and event revenue to pay the bills. When that income was reduced by half overnight, we asked our readers for help, and you responded generously. Our Super Readers subscriptions are now generating more than $1,500 a week — the approximate cost of a full-page ad — to help fund our journalism. As Seven Days was being produced on Tuesday, we learned that our first collaboration with Vermont Public Radio, about lax oversight of Vermont’s eldercare facilities, won a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting. In light of the COVID-19 crisis, the “Worse for Care” series seems prescient now. Like many other small businesses in Vermont, Seven Days also applied for a loan through the federal Paycheck Protection Program. The money subsidized the restoration of pre-pandemic staffing levels and allows the sales team to breathe a little easier for the next six weeks, while they roll out some free products and Want to help Seven Days and services to help their clients — our advertisers. local journalism? Become a Super Reader. What awaits after June 16, the day our Look for the “Give Now” buttons at the top golden carriage turns back into a pumpkin? of sevendaysvt.com. Or send a check with We’re doing everything humanly possible to your address and contact info to: prepare for a new reality, whatever it turns out SEVEN DAYS to be. C/O SUPER READERS P.O. BOX 1164 That means keeping an eye out for BURLINGTON, VT 05402-1164 opportunities. As serial entrepreneur Alan Newman told Paul Heintz in this week’s cover For more information on making a financial story: “I think that, long term, there could be contribution to Seven Days, please contact some real positives coming out of this.” Here’s Corey Grenier: hoping that strengthened community support VOICEMAIL: 802-865-1020, EXT. 36 EMAIL: SUPERREADERS@SEVENDAYSVT.COM for Vermont businesses and local media are among them.

Paula Routly SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

news

MORE INSIDE

ST. ALBANS TOP COP TO RETIRE PAGE 14

MAIL-IN VOTING: YEA OR NAY? PAGE 16

BOOZE SALES SOAR

LAW ENFORCEMENT

PAGE 18

TIM NEWCOMB

Vermonters Are Watching Their Neighbors — and Reporting Them B Y C OU R T N EY L A M DIN

Herd Community Burlingtonians worry about the expected return of college students B Y C O LI N FL A N D ER S

une 1, the traditional moving day for thousands of University of Vermont students, means headaches for the city of Burlington even in the best of times. Most student apartment leases begin and end on that day, and a legion of young renters pack up their lives to move to new quarters. Cars and rental trucks jockey for parking on clogged city streets. Unwanted furniture piles up on the greenbelt, abandoned for waste collectors to deal with. The annual upheaval is expected in a college town and usually ends quickly.

HIGHER ED

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

But as Vermont continues to combat the spread of the coronavirus, concern is growing among city residents that the event may bring more than just some minor inconveniences. Anxious that an influx of out-of-state college students could put the state’s hard-fought suppression of the virus at risk, some are pressing leaders for a concrete plan to prevent any outbreaks. “Quite frankly, the university’s been dead silent up to now,” said resident Tony Redington, who is in his eighties and lives on St. Paul Street. “What we have is a situation where we have absolutely no information and everybody’s

sort of waiting for the university to let us know.” “It’s really up to the university to set the tone,” Redington added. UVM informed students in mid-March that they would be transitioning to fulltime remote learning after their spring break. At that time, university president Suresh Garimella told students not to return to Burlington and asked those who lived off-campus — about half of the university’s 10,700 undergrads — to head home. “Many of you share close spaces in a HERD COMMUNITY

» P.16

Forget loving thy neighbor — in the age of coronavirus, some people are more interested in narcing on thy neighbor. Vermont has created an online reporting tool that allows people to tell on those whom they suspect are violating Gov. Phil Scott’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” executive order. It has proven quite popular: More than 270 people filed complaints between April 1 and 15, according to a ream of redacted public records obtained by Seven Days. The complaints are funneled to the Vermont State Police but can be assigned to other police agencies, depending on where the alleged violation took place. Nearly two-thirds of the complaints were from Vermonters snitching on businesses they presumed were running afoul of Scott’s directives. Many people reported that nonessential operations — such as landscaping companies, a car wash and a “puzzle swapping library” in Stowe — were open despite being told to close. In one complaint, a Brattleboro resident begged authorities to do something about a local grocery store clerk who “was standing only inches from two people with no mask.” “Please can we enforce this somehow? Even if it is just a daily phone call to ask and remind,” they wrote. “Please don’t say ‘we can’t enforce it.’ Please make it so you CAN. Go higher up. Do something!” Some concerned citizens attempted to solve the problem themselves before alerting the authorities. An apartment complex manager in Springfield reminded tenants of a noguest policy after noticing 14 people had gathered for a child’s birthday party at one of the residences. “They responded with profanity,” the manager wrote. “This particular tenant does not understand the seriousness of this situation. Any assistance with the enforcement of social distancing would be greatly appreciated.” The records don’t indicate how the complaints were resolved, but Attorney General T.J. Donovan has directed law enforcement to take an educational approach by first asking scofflaws to voluntarily comply with the order. Contact: courtney@sevendaysvt.com

Community Heart & Soul is seeking a

President – Executive Director

Isolation Generation

I founded Community Heart & Soul some 15 years ago and by year’s end

For Vermont’s elders, the hardest phase is still to come STORY & PHOT OS BY DEREK BR OU W E R

HEALTH

we’ll have near a hundred Heart & Soul communities across rural America. I and our staff want an experienced leader who can lead a significant expansion of Heart & Soul. Someone who understands why small cities and towns make such great places to live and raise families, to start a business in, and relocate to. Community Heart & Soul involves everyone, is bottom-up, and helps towns prosper through applying their Heart & Soul to decisions about the future. Based in Burlington, Vt. area.

LYMAN ORTON, Chairman of the Board/Founder

For how it works, go to www.communityheartandsoul.org and download our Intro Book. Then email me at info@orton.org if you can do the job. James J. Hasson, 94, flipping through World War II photos at his Cavendish home

he pandemic can seem very distant from the long dirt road in Cavendish where James J. Hasson lives. But it is shaping every day of the 94-yearold man’s life. Hasson has lived in this tucked-away wedge of southern Vermont since 1947, in a white clapboard house that abuts the Knapp Brook Wildlife Management Area, bounded by woods and the namesake stream.

THE PEOPLE CALLING IN ARE

THE ONLY RICHES I HAVE LEFT. JA M ES J. H ASSON

Before the new coronavirus found its way to Vermont, Hasson treasured his regular trips to the Thompson Senior Center in Woodstock to eat lunch with friends, as well as his shifts as a docent at the Old Constitution House in Windsor. In the last two months, he’s started up his Toyota truck just twice — once to be sure the engine still turned over, and a second time to fill it with gas. Without television or internet, Hasson and his 67-year-old son James D. Hasson,

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who lives with him, have few ways to pass the time. And there’s no end in sight. “I can see something like this going on for years,” the elder Hasson said. “I dread the thought of it.” A two-month stay-at-home order has managed to limit the virus’ initial spread in Vermont, but COVID-19 will remain a continuing threat as the lockdown is gradually lifted. On May 6, Gov. Phil Scott allowed residents to resume small social gatherings between “trusted households.” The reprieve doesn’t apply to older adults or those with certain medical conditions, groups that have accounted for the vast majority of pandemic deaths around the globe. “They should continue to shelter in place,” the governor’s order reads, “and family and friends should do everything they can to help keep them safe.” The move marked a new phase of the pandemic response in which isolation ceases to be a shared experience. While many Vermonters will rejoin society in the coming weeks, the state’s elders will be forced to navigate a period that is even more treacherous, and potentially even lonelier, than the one they’ve just endured. Some worry their needs may get ISOLATION GENERATION

5/11/20 9:27 AM

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news LAW ENFORCEMENT

As Controversies Mount, St. Albans Police Chief Gary Taylor to Retire BY D E RE K B R O UW E R

Longtime St. Albans Police Chief Gary Taylor plans to retire following a series of misconduct allegations involving his officers and a recent no-confidence vote by the police officers’ union. Taylor, who is also the chief of the city fire department, will retire from both positions on December 31. The transition plan calls for division commanders to begin assuming some leadership duties in the months ahead, city manager Dominic Cloud told Seven Days on Tuesday. If the city is able to hire a new chief before the end of the year, Taylor will assume other duties until his retirement date. “This was very much a voluntary transition on the chief’s part,” Cloud said. “I think, in his gut, he began to see it was time to bring in new leadership.” The police department’s been under a darkening cloud of controversy for some time. The most recent incident involved Officer Zachary Pigeon, who was charged last month with aggravated sexual assault and kidnapping. He’s currently on unpaid leave pending the outcome of his case. Last year, former sergeant Jason Lawton was fired and later arrested after punching a handcuffed woman in a holding cell. Two other former officers, corporals Joel Daugreilh and Mark Schwartz, resigned amid internal investigations; both now face ongoing criminal probes for on-duty conduct. Taylor had hired each of them. Pressure mounted several days ago, when the police officer’s union sent a letter to Taylor and Cloud calling for the chief’s resignation. “Under his recent leadership, employees feel suppressed and subdued, while morale and trust within the department has plummeted,” the letter reads. Cloud said the letter was not the driving factor in Taylor’s retirement, but the city manager acknowledged the officers’ frustration. “We’re looking to rebuild the department, and part of it involves addressing the concerns expressed in that letter,” he said. At the same time, Cloud said the chief “has always done what’s right by the department.” Reached by email, Taylor declined to comment. m Contact: derek@sevendaysvt.com

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

Isolation Generation « P.13 lost in the push to reopen businesses and repair a damaged economy. “There’s a real fear that older Vermonters are going to be left behind,” said Ruby Baker, executive director of the Community of Vermont Elders, an advocacy group, “that all of these changes are going to start happening and the world is going to move forward without them.” Weeks of lockdown have already presented a slate of difficulties in a state that has one of the highest percentages of residents age 65 and older in the country. Senior centers and adult day centers were ordered closed, while the demand for home-delivered meals has spiked dramatically. In-home services such as laundry and cleaning have been reduced. Scams that target the elderly proliferate. Area Agencies on Aging have adapted during the crisis, aided by an influx of volunteers. Age Well, which provides Meals on Wheels and coordinates senior services in northwestern Vermont, said it served roughly 40 percent more homedelivered meals last month than in April 2019. The Southwestern Vermont Council on Aging set up a volunteer grocery shopper program. Some senior centers, including the Thompson Senior Center, have offered virtual classes or bingo games over the phone. The Woodstock-based center also set up a curbside meal-pickup service for older adults who enjoy the excuse to leave their houses. Besides distributing more than 30 meals each day, employees hand out puzzles and donate copies of local newspapers. “People are just really tired of being at home and not able to do the things they want to do,” executive director Deanna Jones said. “We’re trying to keep people’s spirits up.” The virus has presented an unsettling new trial for Hasson, a retired plumber who signed up for the Navy’s construction battalion, the Seabees, as a teenager during World War II. A mask-clad Hasson described his lifetime of service during an interview last week at his backyard picnic table, where he’d laid out photos from his time in the military for his visitor. Five of his childhood friends died during the war, Hasson recalled as he flipped through the pages of a photo album. After he returned from his service in the Pacific, Hasson said, he made a point to visit his deceased friends’ mothers. He later served again, in Vietnam, at age 43. Hasson said he wishes he could aid the coronavirus response, but “I don’t dare leave the house.” “It’s been such a waste,” he said of spending the past eight weeks on lockdown. Hasson said the Thompson Senior Center

has delivered him four meals each week, and the Reading-West Windsor Food Shelf drops off groceries. He also gets daily check-in calls from one of the senior center’s employees, which he finds especially rewarding. “The people calling in are the only riches I have left. I just cherish these phone calls,” he said. “They recognize you’re a human being.”

THERE MAY NEVER BE A TIME WHERE OLDER ADULTS FEEL COMFORTABLE PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY THE SAME WAY THEY DID. R UBY BAK E R

Social isolation was a challenge for Vermont’s rural seniors before the pandemic, said Janet Hunt, executive director for the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging, a nonprofit trade group. She started a task force last fall to begin tackling the problem, which has only become more complicated since. State officials have already said that longterm care facilities, where residents have been unable to receive visits from family members since March, will be among the last places to relax visitation restrictions. No one knows when senior centers and adult day programs will resume in-person services or what those will look like. Some offerings may continue online but will be limited by patchy broadband and technology access around the state. The coronavirus is also exacerbating a caregiving shortage that has plagued the state in recent years. Callers to the Southwestern Vermont Council on Aging’s help line have reported losing homemaking supports such as laundry and cleaning, aging services directors Dana McMahon and Jennifer Plouffe said. “Technology doesn’t fix everything,”

McMahon said. “There’s the need for people to come into the home and assist with a task.” Some supports for seniors rely on volunteers — who are often older adults themselves. Jones said more than 60 percent of the Thompson Senior Center’s volunteers are older than 70. Many of those volunteers have been forced to isolate themselves since March. Younger people have filled the gap — “one glimmer of hope” to come from the pandemic, Hunt said. Others worry that such volunteerism won’t continue once younger people return to work. Advocates see the weeks ahead as a pivotal period. On one hand, it’s an opportunity for the state to renew its commitment to making Vermont a safe place to age, but it’s also a dangerous moment that could leave older adults more isolated than ever. “There may never be a time where older adults feel comfortable participating in society the same way they did,” Baker said. “The more we are thinking about what the world should look like, how we should respond best, we need to make sure that older adults and family caregivers are at the table.” If communities fail to do so, they will also lose out on older adults’ contributions. Helen Beattie, 65, recently retired from UP for Learning, the education nonprofit she founded. The East Hardwick resident has spent her weeks in quarantine organizing a volunteer mask production and distribution program. Her team of more than 20 volunteer sewers delivered 500 masks within the last two weeks, with plans for at least a thousand more. Beattie said she and her husband will be “very conservative” in the months ahead, wearing masks in public, avoiding public forums and forgoing trips to see their outof-state children in favor of camping locally. In the meantime, Beattie wants to help promote mask use in the face of “predictable resistance to using them.” “I feel responsible and feel excited about figuring out how we send that message in a way that motivates people to wear them,” she said. In Cavendish, Hasson is also hoping for a cultural shift. “There might be some good to come out of this thing,” he said. “It will show people what’s really valuable.” As Hasson stood in his front yard, a truck carrying two kayaks drove past, in the direction of Knapp ponds. Hasson pointed to his own springtime escape, in the form of some recently tilled dirt by the brook, where he and his son will soon plant their garden. “You’ve got to have something to look forward to,” he said. m Contact: derek@sevendaysvt.com

A worker helping to evacuate Burlington Health & Rehabilitation Center patients in March

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Vermont Nursing Homes, Hospitals Are Exempt From Most COVID-19 Claims

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BY K E VI N MC C A L L UM

Weeks after the pandemic took hold in Vermont, the health care industry won sweeping immunity from civil liability over how workers in facilities such as hospitals and nursing homes respond. In an April 10 executive order, Gov. Phil Scott extended to most health care facilities and providers the same protections that firefighters, police officers and National Guard members enjoy when responding to natural disasters. The order classifies emergency room nurses, health aides and even dentists as emergency responders in the pandemic, entitled to the same limits on liability as those who run into burning buildings or rescue residents stranded by rising floodwaters. Those workers and their employers can’t face civil liability except for in cases of misconduct or gross negligence. Lobbyists for hospitals and eldercare facilities pushed for the measure. They initially sought limits on liability similar to what the governors of New York and Illinois had approved, said Rebecca Kelley, Scott’s spokesperson. But administration officials felt the protections already granted to first responders would be sufficient if applied to health care workers, Kelley said. “Essentially, all the governor’s declaration does is make it clear that under the current law, the COVID-19 response is an emergency response,” said Laura Pelosi, the Vermont Health Care Association’s lobbyist. Pelosi said hospitals followed state orders to cancel elective surgeries, ramp up staffing and use personal protective gear — measures that helped bring the outbreak under control. For that, facilities should not be exposed to additional liability, Pelosi said. Some advocates and attorneys worry about whether it was wise to give a pass to companies charged with caring for vulnerable populations such as eldercare home residents, since care sometimes falls short. “You’re taking away one recourse that residents would have to counteract against bad behavior by facilities,” said Sean Londergan, a Vermont Legal Aid

staff attorney who serves as the state’s eldercare ombudsman. Despite fatal outbreaks in two facilities, Vermont’s nursing homes have been responsive and reasonably successful in containing the virus, especially compared to facilities in surrounding states, Londergan said. But enforcement of regulations in general is lacking, and only the most egregious problems ever lead to penalties, he said. That leaves the risk of legal judgments as an important safeguard for residents, he said. Attorney Emily Joselson objects to the immunity. “Nursing homes which were putting profits over safety before the pandemic are some of the same institutions that failed to prepare for, and are not appropriately confronting, this crisis, and are thus putting their vulnerable residents — and their caregivers — at greater risk of harm,” Joselson wrote in an email to Seven Days. She argued that Scott has a host of emergency management powers at his disposal in times of crisis, but reinterpreting existing laws is not one of them. “The Governor cannot rewrite or expand a state statute to shield an industry from failing to take commonsense measures based upon available information, measures which federal and state regulations mandated before the current crisis to prevent infections and the spread of disease,” Joselson wrote. She worries that health care organizations will claim all shortcomings — whether ones that caused a broken hip at an eldercare home or a missed cancer diagnosis at a rural hospital — to be COVID-19-related. That was never the intent of the order, Pelosi said. She countered that regulators have been “very aggressive” and that, overall, facilities have done a “phenomenal job” of keeping the virus at bay or containing its spread. “They are doing the best they can do with, frankly, a very challenging situation,” Pelosi said. m Contact: kevin@sevendaysvt.com

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news Herd Community « P.12 STATEHOUSE

Pressure Builds on Scott to Approve Mail-In Voting BY K E VI N MC C A L L UM

Gov. Phil Scott is coming under increasing pressure to allow Vermont’s November general election to be conducted by mail, something he continues to resist despite the pleas of state elections officials that planning must begin. Earlier this year, the legislature gave Secretary of State Jim Condos the authority to change the format in response to the COVID-19 pandemic “in consultation and agreement with the Governor.” Scott argues that a decision about the general election need not be made until after the August primaries. He says he’s not worried about voter fraud, an issue that some other Republicans around the nation have raised to oppose mail-in elections. Scott’s preference is to hold a regular in-person election if possible in November to allow the state to continue its steady return to normalcy. Condos and state elections officials have been insisting that planning for a mail-in election must begin to ensure that ballots can be printed, volunteers trained, voters properly informed, and polling places — which would still be open — kept safe. Liberal groups argued that continued delay would sow uncertainty and make mail-in voting harder in initiate. “I cannot imagine what the governor is dawdling over at this point, but it is bordering on reckless to fail to move forward immediately with this decision,” said Paul Burns, executive director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, last Friday. The governor is ignoring the very real likelihood that the coronavirus could return in the fall with little warning, said Kiah Morris, the movement politics director of Rights & Democracy Vermont. Complicating the issue: The August 11 primaries are going to be run in the traditional fashion because there isn’t enough time to make the switch to a mail-in election. Scott has noted that it could be confusing for voters to be told to prepare for a regular election in August and a mail-in election in the fall. m Contact: Kevin@sevendaysvt.com

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

way that presents risks to you and to your roommates,” he wrote. “What will you do if one of you becomes ill or needs to selfquarantine? Most of you will be better off back home with your family.” It’s unknown exactly how many offcampus students followed that advice. Though city streets were unusually quiet during last week’s final exams, a handful of students still splayed on rooftops or kicked back on front porches. Still, now that the university plans to resume in-person classes this fall, students who did heed the president’s request are likely considering a return to the city, particularly those who would otherwise be paying rent for an empty apartment. With this in mind, the university says it is working on an outreach campaign to inform students of the safest way to return to Burlington, including a request to self-quarantine. The school plans to discuss how it will handle the return of off-campus students during an online briefing Wednesday, May 13, featuring university officials and a representative of the Vermont Tenants program at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. It has also developed a survey for off-campus students, to “get a better sense of the numbers,” UVM spokesperson Enrique Corredera wrote in an email to Seven Days on Monday. Survey respondents will receive tips, resources and guidance from the Vermont Department of Health, Corredera said. Those who arrive from out of state will also be asked to self-quarantine for 12 days — a time frame the university is basing on recent guidance from health experts. UVM will contact all rising juniors and seniors, and the school will work with city staffers to ask landlords to “reinforce communications to tenants moving in on June 1.” The school is also considering a phased approach for on-campus students to collect their belongings from the dorms. Vermont officials recently detailed a new testing and contact-tracing strategy that they hope will tamp down any potential coronavirus outbreaks before they spread further. Under the new guidelines, anyone who enters the state — including college students — can be tested after quarantining for a week. Students who wish to receive the free test can either call their doctor or the student health center, according to the health department. Those who test negative can then end their quarantine. The health department also informed the university that out-of-state family members can help students move if they only stay in town “for a few hours” and

depart later that day, Corredera said. Families who travel up to Burlington within the next month likely wouldn’t be able to find lodging in the city even if they wanted to stay. Scott has ordered Vermont inns and hotels to remain closed to the general public until June 15 and has not said whether he plans to extend that date. Speaking at his daily coronavirus briefing last Friday, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger outlined UVM’s self-quarantining plan and said the city is working

IS IT FAIR TO TELL THE STUDENTS NOT TO RETURN? IS IT FAIR FOR THEM TO RETURN TO PUT OTHER PEOPLE IN DANGER? C H AR L IE GIANNO N I

with the university to firm up guidance. He acknowledged the concerns about returning students and said they are well founded. But he suggested that the summer influx will actually help the city by serving as a trial run for the fall, when the rest of UVM’s student body descends on Burlington. “It’s probably a good thing that we’re getting an opportunity to try that on a smaller scale now,” he said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of lessons learned from it and some additional guidance that will be developed.” Other city officials believe that UVM should take a more proactive approach. City Council President Max Tracy (P-Ward 2), who lives in the heart of offcampus student housing on Greene Street, said he asked UVM to tell students that they should only return to Burlington

for essential reasons, such as jobs or internships. “If they come back and they don’t have a job or some other thing to do, then it could just mean more large gatherings and parties,” Tracy said. Though city streets have been quieter since the university sent students home, Tracy said he has witnessed some worrisome lapses of social distancing, including a Cinco de Mayo gathering outside a nearby house at which both students and parents played drinking games. “We need to really be vigilant about this, recognizing that although we have prevented a lot of community spread, that’s fragile,” Tracy said. “It’s a recipe for disaster if people [who] are coming from out of state are playing games like beer pong.” Burlington police usually rely on the city’s noise ordinance to break up big gatherings. An updated municipal ordinance gives the department a new tool to crack down on pandemic parties. It authorizes police to cite people for breaking the governor’s executive orders, which currently ban gatherings of more than 10 people. Deputy Chief Matthew Sullivan said the department has not yet cited anyone for violating the ordinance, nor has it had to deal with any of the traditional qualityof-life issues that often arise while the university is in session. That is likely because many students are home — for now, anyway. The peace comes at a cost: If students did not return for the summer, that could impede recovery for businesses that rely on their patronage. For Charlie Giannoni, a 54-year-old who lives on Rose Street, therein lies the challenge. Giannoni said the students who live in his neighborhood all seem to be adhering to the health guidelines, wearing masks and keeping their distance from others. He said he’s worried that some city residents may aim their fear and frustration at students when it’s not warranted. At the same time, he understands that a large number of out-of-state arrivals could lead to an outbreak. “We’re all concerned,” he said. “But what do you really do about it? When does it cross a point where public safety has to buckle under the needs of the economy?” “Is it fair to tell the students not to return?” he asked. “Is it fair for them to return to put other people in danger?” Giannoni said he doesn’t know the answers, which is why he plans to support city and college leaders in whatever they decide. “It’s such a short period of time to make these important decisions,” he said. “All the pressure is on them. The rest of us just have to basically wait and see.” m Contact: colin@sevendaysvt.com

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news

Booze Blues

Liquor sales are up, but Vermont’s alcohol industry is struggling B Y PAUL HEI N TZ

hen Gov. Phil Scott’s finance commissioner briefed lawmakers last week on a plan to balance Vermont’s beleaguered state budget, the news was mostly sobering. But there was a chaser. “For better or for worse,” Commissioner Adam Greshin said, Vermonters appear to be boozing it up while hunkering down during the coronavirus pandemic — leading to an uptick in state liquor revenue. According to data provided by the state Department of Liquor and Lottery, retail sales of distilled spirits were up nearly 16 percent year over year in April — the first full month during which Scott’s stay-at-home order was in place. The binge contributed to an unexpected $4.6 million revenue bump in the fiscal year ending next month. “I would be inclined to say that personal consumption has increased,” Liquor and Lottery Commissioner Patrick Delaney told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee later last week. “For all intents and purposes, we’re riding the wave.” While some retailers have managed to catch that wave, many in Vermont’s sprawling alcohol industry — brewers, distillers, vintners, restaurants, bars and distributors — have been swamped by it. Though emergency orders permitting takeout and delivery have helped some in the sector, the temporary rules have not made up for the closure of more profitable portions of the business, such as brewpubs and tasting rooms. “It’s the big guys who are the winners. It’s the premium local brands that are getting hammered,” said Bret Hamilton, owner and manager of Richmond’s Stone Corral Brewery. “Understandably, shoppers are being very cautious with their money.” Indeed, preliminary state data suggest that shoppers are gravitating toward what Delaney refers to as “value brands,” such as Jack Daniels, Absolut and Tito’s. They are buying in larger quantities, the commissioner said, to “fill the pantry” during the pandemic. Sales of 1.75-liter bottles were up by close to 29 percent in April compared to last year, while sales of 750-milliliter bottles increased by just 2 percent. According to Delaney, that’s a reversal

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SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

Vermont’s April Liquor Sales Jumped Nearly 16 Percent This Year $8,000,000

$6.6 M $6,000,000

$5.3 M

$5.5 M

$5.7 M

April 2018

April 2019

$5.1 M

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$2,000,000

April 2015

of a long-term trend toward buying smaller quantities of higher-quality liquor. “Spirits are an investment,” said Ryan Christiansen, president of and head distiller at Caledonia Spirits. “A lot of the more interesting spirits depend on the customer browsing by picking up the bottle, reading more about it and thinking about it.” Consumers engaging in curbside liquor pickup are more likely to stick with “the brands that you know the store is going to have in stock,” said Christiansen, who serves on the board of the American Craft Spirits Association. That dynamic has benefited Vermont’s better-known beverages, such as Caledonia’s Barr Hill Gin, but it’s hurt the state’s many smaller distillers. “Most of our members are down 50 to 60 percent,” said Distilled Spirits Council of Vermont president Jeremy Elliot, who is also the co-owner and president of Smugglers’ Notch Distillery. “People are not willing to gamble on something they’re not familiar with.” Though the state does not track beer or wine sales, a similar dynamic appears to be taking place in those sectors. “We have definitely seen an uptick in larger-format packaging,” said Ryan Chaffin, director of marketing and business development for Farrell Distributing, the state’s largest distributor. Those who used to buy 12-packs of national brands are now picking up 30-racks, he said, while those who favored

April 2016

April 2017

four-packs of Vermont craft beer are looking for 12-packs. According to Chaffin, boxed wine, such as Bota Box, also “has had a good run.” Vermont’s larger brewers appear better poised to weather the storm. Lawson’s Finest Liquids took “a pretty significant hit” when it closed its

IT’S THE BIG GUYS WHO ARE THE WINNERS. BR E T H AMILTO N

Waitsfield taproom in March, according to founding brewer and co-owner Sean Lawson. It also lost out when bars and restaurants in the eight other states it serves closed down. “But really the biggest part of our business for distribution is the retail sales, and thankfully those are up at retail stores across all nine states,” he said. “Overall, we’re holding steady. We’re doing OK.” After halting beer production for two weeks in order to reduce inventory, Lawson said, the company has achieved a new equilibrium and honed its drivethrough beer pickup system in Waitsfield. “What’s remarkable is how steady it’s been for the past eight weeks,” he said. At the same time, Lawson fears for his smaller peers. “The ones who are most

April 2020

affected are those that sell primarily through their taprooms and on-site sales,” he said. According to Hamilton, only 25 to 30 percent of the beer that Stone Corral produces is sold at the Richmond brewpub, but it accounts for 75 to 80 percent of the company’s revenue. That’s because direct sales cut out distributors and retailers. “You have to be able to sell your own beer through your own taps as a small brewery just to be a viable business,” Hamilton said. Brewpubs and distilleries are also important venues to hook future retail customers. Close to 85 percent of those who visit Smugglers’ Notch’s shuttered tasting rooms in Burlington, Waterbury and Jeffersonville are tourists, according to Elliot. “So if the tourists don’t come back, I have some serious decisions to make in the next couple of months,” he said. While liquor sales are up at many of the state’s 76 authorized retailers, there appears to be some regional variation. According to Delaney, stores in the Connecticut River Valley are doing better than their counterparts elsewhere in Vermont. He said that could be because some state-run liquor stores in neighboring New Hampshire have closed, while all but two of Vermont’s have remained open. BOOZE BLUES

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news Booze Blues « P.18 Dan King, assistant manager of Norwich Wines and Spirits, has another theory. “The state liquor stores in New Hampshire are often crowded, especially in the evening,” he said. “Maybe it’s reassuring to the average customer that we’re not letting anyone into the store.” While sales are up at King’s store, the Beverage Warehouse in Winooski is having a different experience. Thirty percent of its sales typically are made to restaurants and bars, according to co-owner George Bergin. It also relies on events that draw a crowd, such as weddings and graduation parties. “Without the tourists, without the college kids, without people getting married, the numbers overall are definitely down,” he said. Though food and beverage retailers were never forced to close their doors, many, including the Beverage Warehouse, did so for health and safety reasons. (The store printed black T-shirts to celebrate its designation as an essential business. They read: “The Bevie: Essential AF 2020.”) Co-owner Jen Swiatek said curbside sales helped ward off layoffs but resulted in “four times the work and half the money.” The Bevie recently allowed a small number of customers back into the store. Vermont restaurants, which have been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic, have tried to make the most of the temporary rules allowing takeout alcohol sales. The Great Northern in Burlington’s South End is offering its signature cocktails — including the Maple Mad Fashioned — in glass maple syrup containers. Though the to-go booze biz is hardly making up for an overall drop in sales, according to chef and owner Frank Pace, “It helps customers remember what they loved about our bar.” Taco Gordo, in Burlington’s Old North End, didn’t immediately offer takeout drinks after it shifted to curbside pickup and delivery, according to owner Charlie Sizemore. “We took two, three weeks, sort of figuring out how we were going to manage that in a safe and responsible way,” he said. Now, its Takeout Marg LOL is helping to keep the restaurant afloat. “It’s like a life raft that we can sort of sail into safe harbor,” Sizemore said. He’s hoping the state will allow his and other establishments to continue selling to-go booze through the duration of the economic downturn so that he can avoid opening up his dining room until it’s safer to do so. Lawmakers did express concern about the size of some to-go orders during last week’s Senate Appropriations

hearing. “I’ve never seen a 32-ounce cocktail served to someone at a Vermont restaurant or bar,” Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) told Delaney. “Obviously, you don’t know how many people that’s going home to.” Delaney responded that his department was worried about restaurants delivering alcohol without checking identification. “In other words, drop the product, ring the doorbell and head back to the vehicle,” he said. “That, to us, is a major concern in terms of access to minors.” Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington) also noted that an increase in alcohol consumption could lead to an uptick in alcohol-related crime, such as drunk driving and domestic violence. In fact, early data from the Vermont State Police and other law enforcement agencies using the same records management system show a drop in intoxication and DUI arrests from March 1 through May 15 compared to the same period a year earlier. Police reports mentioning “intoxication,” “intoxicated” or “DUI” declined from 624 to 507, according to data provided by Vermont State Police Sgt. Jay Riggen. Tony Folland, clinical services manager for the state Department of Health, said it was too soon to know how Vermonters’ drinking habits have changed during the pandemic and how that might affect their health. Despite the dearth of data, he said he was concerned about those who may be using alcohol to cope with social isolation or preexisting anxiety or depression, as well as older Vermonters who may be mixing alcohol with medications. “If you’re questioning whether it’s concerning or you’re feeling like there’s something wrong, reach out, because there is care available,” Folland said. Those in the booze business, meanwhile, are encouraging Vermonters to spend their money locally whenever possible in order to keep them and their peers in business. Christiansen of Caledonia Spirits noted that farmers rely on distillers and brewers, who rely in turn on bartenders. “There’s kind of a ripple effect that begins by taking the bartender out of the equation,” he said. “We are so interconnected,” said Swiatek of Beverage Warehouse. “We’re not just competitors. Business is not just business in Vermont.” m Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy here at sevendaysvt.com/disclosure. Contact: paul@sevendaysvt.com

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lifelines

OBITUARIES, VOWS, CELEBRATIONS

him much, much farther. In his brief time with us, he lived in Las Vegas, Nev.; Hollywood, Fla.; New Haven, Conn.; Brooklyn, N.Y.; Yiwu, China; San Diego, Calif.; and finally, Los Angeles. Jesse attended Burlington High School as a youth and Champlain College as an adult, graduating from the latter in 2017. The former of these two was where Jesse, at a very young age, was first introduced to the pharmaceutical drug OxyContin, beginning a tiresome war that he, heartbreakingly, would never see the end of. Jesse was wildly expressive and creative. He was hilarious beyond words and had an ability to not only amuse any passerby but authentically befriend them, as well. He had a smile that could brighten the night, and by just existing he painted the world colorful for anyone lucky enough to have met him. When Jesse wanted to see you laugh, you would until your belly ached. Knowing Jesse was constantly rewarding. He was always on the lookout for ways to protect and help those closest to him, whether it was providing whatever assistance he could to tackle some obstacle

for you, or just a simple kind gesture. At 18, Jesse began managing his father’s business, Strawberry Fields, and continued to do so for nearly nine years. The nature of the business allowed Jesse to travel. He saw most of the country, coordinating and managing concessions at major events nationally. It was here that Jesse’s entrepreneurial spirit was groomed, and in 2016, alongside his partner, Lori Luo, he created a rapidly successful festival fashion company named the Lumi Shop. Jesse was a fiercely driven man in everything he aspired to, from completing his college degree while also employed full time, to his intense work ethic and endless business pursuits, to his relationships with his loved ones. Everything Jesse did was with the utmost diligence and grace. Yet this never seemed enough to him. When Jesse was doing his best and being his most fulfilled self, still he was madly unsettled within. Jesse spent years in unspeakable darkness, his joy being constantly threatened, constantly eradicated, never safe from the torment of addiction. For this he was hardest on himself; he shunned and shamed himself, thinking he was unworthy because of it, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

Brighter days were upon him in 2015, when Jesse met Lori Luo and his life changed forever. Everything he thought he knew about not deserving to be loved fully by another human being vanished. He felt alive again, every moment he could capture with her by his side counting as a victory. She believed in him immensely, and we could not blame her, for the light in his eyes was undeniable. Unfortunately for us all, his disease was always lurking around the corner, poised in striking stance, ready to attack at any opportunity. Jesse wasn’t the sum total of his affliction. He was incredibly kind and charismatic; he was courageous. He was remarkably strong. Jesse loved his family. He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a nephew, a cousin, a grandson and a friend. Jesse couldn’t be contained in a box. He was consistently breaking out, reinventing, diversifying. Jesse was the most genuine person you’d ever meet. In an era when socializing became digital, his soul yearned for real human connection. Jesse loved deeply and truly, creating unbreakable bonds between him and the many people he cherished. Jesse was fearless, and imaginative, and determined. He was independent and loyal, caring and giving. He’d offer you the shirt off his back and keep you company if you were alone and

cold, even if he didn’t know you at all. Jesse was alone in his home in LA when the virus struck America, though. The new necessities of sanitization became an obsession for him, and Jesse, in his protective nature, had to ensure the wellbeing of those he loved. He went to great lengths acquiring a surplus of hand sanitizers, disinfectants and masks that he strategically shipped to his family and friends, just to know they were safe. This is the person he was. We don’t want Jesse to be remembered for his burdens. We want him remembered for the absolutely brilliant young man he was. Jesse was such a powerful person that we thought him invincible. It is hard to comprehend him being gone, but our pain in losing him will never go away. Jesse is survived by his mother and stepfather, Diana and Ron Charboneau; his father, Lary Budnick; his sister and brother-in-law, Starr and Sam Ramson; his brother, David Budnick; his partner, Lori Luo; his nephew, Leo Ramson; his grandma and grandpa, Marilyn and Gerard Pettinati; and many, many aunts, uncles and cousins, including the Moores, Marceaus, Shappys, Ryans, Rotellas and Ploofs. Due to the current pandemic, a celebration of Jesse’s life will be postponed to a later

date. Jesse will be honored with a wake at Ready Funeral Home and a Mass at St. Joseph Church in Burlington once the situation is safe for all. Jesse’s family will update friends when a service date is set. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the Jesse Ben Budnick Fund, St. Mark Church, 1251 North Ave., Burlington, VT 05408. The void that Jesse left behind will never be filled. We have faced an unimaginable loss by him leaving us. We will never get to see him smile again, see him flourish again, laugh or cry. He was taken unnaturally too soon. If you yourself are facing the overwhelming task of battling addiction, please know you are not alone. You are special, and you are loved, and you are worth it. And if you perish, you too will leave behind an irreparable wound in those you love most. Please do not bargain with your life. Please talk to someone. There are many resources and we ALL want to see you recover. You will heal if you want it, as well. If you’re still alive, then there is still hope. Jesse Ben, you were a miracle. More than anything, we had hoped you would find solace in life, but now you are finally free from all the pain of this world. We cannot help but miss you always. May you find everlasting peace. We love you infinitely.

the University of Vermont, where he studied agriculture. He worked for many years with his father, Gordon Woods, and his brother, Jason Woods, at the architectural firm Gordon G. Woods Associates. In 1995, he began working at IBM as a metrology programmer, where he became an invaluable team

member due to his remarkable work ethic and technical expertise. To him, coworkers were family. Brian was extraordinarily kind and compassionate and loving. A selfless giver, he never lost his sense of wonder for the world, or his sense of humor. He had a deep appreciation for nature,

music and sports, especially the Dallas Cowboys and Red Sox Nation. He was an avid skier and could often be found shredding fresh powder on the slopes at Smugglers’ Notch. His other passions included fishing, mountain biking, hiking and photography. Brian is survived by his

mother, Dorothea Woods; sister Judy Rogers; sister Beverly Spencer; mother of his children, Maryann Woods; daughter, Jessica Woods Lee; son, Andrew Woods; two grandchildren, Bennett W. Lee and Sophia V. Lee; and many beloved friends and extended family. He will be dearly, greatly missed.

He was predeceased by his father, Gordon G. Woods, and brother, Jason Woods. Memorial donations can be made to the Cancer Research Institute at cancer research.org/join-the-cause/ donate. A funeral and celebration of life will be postponed until it is possible to gather.

OBITUARIES

Jesse Budnick NOVEMBER 12, 1989APRIL 25, 2020 LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

Our beloved Jesse Ben Budnick passed away Saturday, April 25, 2020, after a long, cruel battle with the turmoil of addiction. Though we feared his death for more than a decade, we had hopelessly believed it would never come. Jesse was born in Burlington, Vt., on November 12, 1989. When the winter was just beginning, we received our warmest gift yet. He grew up in Burlington, but his overabundance of life took

Brian Woods JANUARY 25, 1952APRIL 8, 2020 GEORGIA, VT.

Brian Glenn Woods, 68, passed away on Wednesday, April 8, at the McClure Miller Respite House in Colchester, Vt., with his family by his side, both physically and virtually. We lost him far too soon. He was born in St. Johnsbury, Vt., on January 25, 1952, to Gordon G. Woods and Dorothea E. P. Woods, and he attended schools there. He graduated from St. Johnsbury Academy in 1970, where he was known for his athletic prowess in football, basketball, and track and field — he held the state record in triple jump. The family later moved to Burlington, and Brian attended

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

lifelines OBITUARIES

Soren WysockeyJohnson JULY 28, 2004APRIL 4, 2020 RICHMOND, VT.

Soren William WysockeyJohnson was born July 28, 2004, and died on April 4, 2020. His sudden and unexpected death was horribly devastating under any circumstances, but made more so in the midst of COVID-19, as we cannot gather in person to mourn his passing. Our Soren’s ineffable spirit burned hot and bright in his short 15 and 3/4 years. He will be affectionately remembered as a Renaissance man and humble soul. His interests and skills spanned many disciplines, and his loving, easygoing nature was like no other. Because his life was tragically abbreviated, we are determined to tell his story thoroughly. Soren was born in Old Town, Alexandria, Va., to Kathryn and Doug WysockeyJohnson and big sister Isabel. They lived for two more years in D.C., soaking in the city and its wonderful people, and then moved back to their home in Richmond, Vt., to live closer to nature. Along with his family, Soren knew and loved the natural world. His time at Saxon Hill School in Jericho, where he attended preschool through kindergarten, nurtured that interest, as well as inspired his out-of-the-box

OBITUARIES, VOWS, CELEBRATIONS

thinking. Their Reggio-Emiliastyle philosophy deeply respects the inherent knowledge of each child. There Soren found inspiring teachers, all learning together outdoors — no matter the weather — on the playground, in the woods and brook. His sweet spirit was beautifully tended, and he later returned there as a teen to work at their summer camps. One friend whom he met there at age 3 became a trusted and loyal friend all of his life. At home, Soren spent his younger days playing with stuffed animals — tigers being his favorites. He built boats, villages and forts outside; played backyard baseball, soccer and basketball; and built stuff with Legos. He and friends created elaborate obstacle courses for racing remote-control cars. He, sister Isabel and local friends enjoyed, for six summers, their mom’s backyard Fairy and Elf Camp, complete with magic, art and nature. Birthday parties were always a blast, from circus-themed fun at Shelburne Museum to sleepovers at home after beach parties and drive-in movies. The major challenge in Soren’s life came in January 2013 as the result of a sledding accident. He suffered a seven-inch frontal skull fracture and traumatic brain injury (TBI) requiring several days in the PICU. He worked patiently to recover, finally returning to school full time in the final two weeks of third grade. In the process of mending, Soren had to substitute quieter activities that had less risk of concussion, but he still managed to live fully. He learned resilience, patience and self-care. Methods were developed at home and school by many caring educators over the years to translate Soren’s knowledge to the page. His favorite teachers made learning fun and acknowledged that grades wouldn’t tell his whole story. Soren lived with the awareness that he was very bright but also knew that his mastery of academics would be difficult to show. He had high expectations of himself and much determination, never wanting to be treated differently. Having

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

had this head injury also put Soren at much increased risk for suicide, impulsivity and difficulty regulating emotion due to the frontal lobe damage. Soren had a great sense of humor, loved to come up with his own jokes and was a quirky inventor of things, building all kinds of contraptions out of mundane materials. His curious mind was later fed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Spark and Splash programs, where he and friends participated in imaginative applied science workshops, such as Lightsaber Dueling and Music Theory/Throat Singing. When he was 10, he surprised his sister with birthday earrings he had crafted from wire, folded paper and beads. We were astonished at the craftsmanship and initiative, but not at how much he loved his sister. Soren’s gift giving could be described as generous and thoughtful. He spent time considering what the recipient might most like and found a way to make that happen. One of the best birthday gifts Kathryn ever received was given just last fall when Soren surprised her with a serenade of “Happy Birthday” on the electric guitar he had just gotten the day before. His gifts came from the soul and were priceless. Soren was a competitive athlete, playing basketball, baseball, soccer and tennis, as well as kayaking, wakeboarding, paddleboarding, sailing and swimming. He was on the State Championship Varsity Hip Hop team at Mount Mansfield Union High School as a sophomore. He was an excellent alpine skier and knew Vermont’s mountains well. He and his friends had favorite trails at Bolton Valley, Sugarbush and Stowe. When he was 10 years old, Soren won a prize for most runs completed at the Rope-athon — a Cochran’s Ski Area fundraiser. He and his family loved Cochran’s “Friday Night Lights.” Soren enjoyed Nordic skiing, as well, often in the woods with his dog Blue. True to his parents’ roots, Soren was a passionate Chicago sports fan, including the Bulls, da Bears, the Blackhawks and the White

Sox (and occasionally the Cubs, but more the White Sox, though he named his cat “Rizzo”...). Soren bantered regularly with his Farfar (father’s father in Swedish) about the stats of his favorite athletes, as well as the dreams and disappointments of Chicago sports teams. Soren had a passion for travel. Often, the most recently visited destination became his new favorite. Our annual vacations across the U.S. allowed us to visit distant family members, as well as to head out on great western adventures, hiking in many national parks and visiting over 30 states. Soren relished our two-week trip to Iceland and Sweden, where he made connections with many warm, wonderful cousins. Two cruises with our Johnson family were unforgettable — one through the Caribbean and another up the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Alaska, seeing humpback whales bubble-net fishing on Soren’s birthday and spending time at Glacier Bay and Denali National Parks. Camping on Burton Island in Lake Champlain and whale-watching in the Saguenay Fjord in Québec were favorite trips. Summers also included vacations in Maine, Cape Cod and Block Island with close friends. Soren looked forward to annual trips to Coronado, Calif., and Vero Beach, Fla., to see his beloved grandparents, who often treated the kids to Legoland, Universal Studios and Disneyworld. Last summer’s trip to San Francisco and Monterey Bay was spectacular and included kayaking with otters, hiking in Muir Woods and unforgettable time with his extended family at an older cousin’s wedding. More cousin fun was had in Vero Beach in late December around his uncle’s wedding. Soren loved skiing the Rockies in Colorado with close friends. His last exciting trip was over February break — a service/mission trip to build homes for Costa Rica’s poor with his father and a group from Richmond Congregational Church. At the end of the week, he surfed the perfect break in Nosara for two days, then zip-lined and tubed an exciting river. He was a curious and flexible traveler. Soren was a tremendous fan of “The Office” and of Star Wars, with strong opinions about plot lines, directors,

actors and special effects. He owned all of the movies and offshoots. There are many stories of unsuspecting friends being cajoled into watching the trilogies with him. He found connection with others — adults and children alike — around this interest, including playing Star Wars games online. His love of adventure, athleticism and desire to help others would have made him an impressive Jedi knight. Sometimes Soren’s courage and ponderings surprised us, such as at age 13, as part of his confirmation process at Richmond Congregational Church, when Soren volunteered to write and deliver the Easter Sunday sunrise sermon. He used part of the Star Wars story as an allegory for Jesus’ story. Soren was still working out his theology and beliefs, but he was pretty sure that heaven existed. Our Soren was very musical and learned instruments quickly. He could play the acoustic guitar, ukulele and saxophone, and he was learning electric guitar. In middle school he sang in chorus, including at the Districts Music Festival. During his teenage years he listened to a lot of music, from classic rock to hip-hop. He loved holidays and all the traditions. His own tradition was making a pumpkin or blueberry pie from scratch every Thanksgiving and a wacky, candy-clad gingerbread house with his sister at Christmastime. Often he made his teachers a “Sun Bread” on Solstice, to brighten their darkest day. Soren had a generous heart and a deep love of family, including our local “family” with whom we celebrated many holidays. He loved all of his grandparents dearly, and in school projects he named his grandfathers — one, as a person he most trusted, and another, as a person he most admired. He loved all of his aunts and uncles and cousins fully. He looked forward to his Michigan uncle and cousin’s annual ski trip to Vermont, when he would get to rip down the mountain, even on school days. Summers always featured a trip to Chicago and southern Michigan, hanging out with grandparents in the suburbs and cousins on Lake Michigan. And for the last six years, it included wonderful weeklong Camp Henry, replete with cousins, fabulous

friends, kind counselors, outdoor games, horseback riding and wakeboarding. As a teen Soren was blessed with amazing friends, from the MMU dance team to his fellow dance teachers at the dance studio to school and camp friends. They talk about his love of blue candy, Flaming Hot Cheetos, spicy hot wings and pizza; his epic Halloween strategies for maximum candy hauls; and his ability to make anything fun. He was a caring friend when someone was having a tough time. He had a closeknit group of friends with whom he hiked and skied Vermont’s highest peaks, as well as explored Vermont’s lakes and rivers. He loved his friends’ annual Solar Bus trip to Hampton Beach in the early summer. This past January, Soren enjoyed Winter Ball with his girlfriend and other friends. Fun was never far away with Soren and company. Soren hoarded funny socks and loved playing quirky versions of table football and indoor basketball with friends, as well as online gaming with the user name “Hunky Lobster.” Friends created a Minecraft Realm in his honor. He also figured out how to build his own computer. At school he played practical jokes on friends. His “mischievery” was legendary, and in good fun. He also managed to put together a last-minute vehicle entry for MMU’s Grand Prix, which he called “The Last Resort.” His friend network was full of interesting, kind kids — we are so very grateful for them. Soren was entrepreneurial and had recently been looking for a job. Back when he was just 12, Soren and a good friend started a T-shirt business called “Soren ‘N Oren’s.” They learned to hand-screen T-shirts and sold them at the local farmers market, giving a portion of proceeds to charity. Soren was a summer camp intern at Saxon Hill School for the past few years and became a magnet for young children with his gentle, playful ways. He was a master frog catcher, origami and paper airplane teacher, elfhouse architect, and builder of giant towers. He was also a Red Cross-certified babysitter and an accomplished mower of lawns, stacker of wood and odd-jobs doer. Dance was a passion for Soren. Last year he was honored to be invited into

the Teacher Apprentice Program at Arabesque, Etc. Dance Studio in Richmond, where he honed his skills as a hip-hop dancer, choreographer and teacher. The dance studio was a nurturing place for him, and he spent many hours there each week, mentored by many remarkable people, several of whom became close friends. Soren played the Wizard of Oz in last spring’s dance studio performance. He cochoreographed and danced in several hip-hop pieces during their nontraditional production of The Nutcracker Tea at the Elley-Long Center last December. He was learning how to teach, and he loved his students and fellow teachers. As for his family, Soren adored his older sister Isabel. She offered him tremendous companionship and much laughter, as well as tough love and rides to earlymorning MMU Dance Team practices. Together they put up with their parents dragging them to museums, to church, up mountains and on multi-week-long camping trips. Isabel helped Soren through some tough experiences and mentored him in dance. His tribute to her, spoken at her Dance Team Senior Recognition Night, had us all in tears with its heartfelt beauty and eloquence. His admiration for her was beyond measure, and he told her so. She is the best sister ever.

Soren loved and was beloved by his parents. We could not have imagined a sweeter, smarter, more playful or determined son. He will remain a persistent presence with us forever, his sideways smile always distilled in our smiles. We ask that you not remember Soren as “a suicide,” but rather as a bright light and spectacular human being who made a puzzling, unexpected and impulsive choice to take his life in what must have been a very difficult moment. Please remember the fullness of his 15 and 3/4 years — his sense of humor, goofy goodness, thoughtfulness and adventurous spirit. In his honor, please commit to reaching out to a trusted friend or adult if you are having feelings of desperation, rather than making an impulsive and irreversible choice to harm yourself. Taking your life wreaks devastation on your family, friends and community and robs them of the chance to have you in their lives for all time. We may never know why he made the choice he did. We will remember Soren as a healthy, happy, connected, purposeful and beloved kid with a bright future. We cannot imagine our lives without him. In addition to his parents, Doug and Kathryn Wysockey-Johnson, Soren is survived by his sister Isabel Wysockey-Johnson; maternal grandmother, Simonne

B. Wysockey; aunt Simonne Soudan and children Kat (Matt) Lighthouse, Colton, Makenna and Weston; uncle and aunt John and Rebecca Wysockey and children Zara, Margeaux, Tommy and Violet; uncle and aunt Michael and Tracy Wysockey and children Harry, Suzy, Beau and Livy; paternal grandparents, William and Marianne Johnson; aunt and uncle Mary and Tom VanDerMeid and children Jeremy (Molly) VanDerMeid and their children Shea, Hollis and Callie; Jonathan (Rachel) VanDerMeid and their children Cole and Dylan; Jami VanDerMeid and son Caden; uncle and aunt Dave and Elizabeth Johnson; and uncle and aunt Paul Johnson and Genevieve Zubrzycki and daughter Anais. Soren also leaves behind countless wonderful second cousins and close family friends from near and far. Soren is predeceased by his maternal grandfather, Thomas J. Wysockey. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Soren WysockeyJohnson Scholarship Fund at Arabesque, Etc. Dance in Richmond, Vt., or to the Young Investigator Program at the Concussion Legacy Foundation. A memorial to celebrate Soren’s life will be held in the near future when it is safe to gather. As a friend recently said, “May the Force be with you, Soren Skywalker.”

IN MEMORIAM To Stephen Roger Albright, who passed away April 2020 ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A congregation of mourning doves at dawn announced your passing with a haunting song. Half-blood siblings you and I are. Both of us had the same remarkable father. A generation older than me, but I remember you well. For your way was your own. A musician, artist, deep thinker, and poet. Your studded leather jacket and ‘70s sunglasses. Your handmade Christmas cards and comical coffee mugs. This is how I will remember you. Farewell, my brother. N.L. Albright Vermont

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Ruth Kassel 1931-2020 SHELBURNE, VT.

Ruth Bettman Kassel, who lived her life with resolute determination and a truly giving heart, died peacefully on May 5, 2020, at Wake Robin in Shelburne, Vt. She was 89. Her dear husband of 67 years predeceased her there, just over four months ago. Ruth Bettman was born in 1931 to a loving and secure family and raised in the Great Depression in Chicago, Ill. She developed a lifelong love of learning and inquiry as a student at the Lab School at the University of Chicago. She earned a degree at Wellesley College, in art history and music, and during that time she also met the love of her life, Bud Kassel. They settled in Middletown, N.Y., in the late 1950s, and she adjusted to life in a small town and the family’s retail business. Like many intelligent and capable women of her generation, she found ways to thrive despite the constraints women faced. She threw herself into civic life in support of those in need, in particular women and mothers, founding or helping to steer a number of social services and education organizations in her community. She discovered politics in mid-life, starting with the Middletown School Board, and then serving several terms in the Orange County legislature in the 1980s and ’90s, including as chair of its Finance Committee. During this time she also earned a law degree at Pace University Law School and practiced family law, assisting children involved in family court matters, until 2002, when she and Bud moved to Burlington, Vt. In Vermont she was a dedicated and upbeat volunteer at ECHO and the Flynn Theater in Burlington, as well as an avid member of the South County Chorus, and she made close friends and took on new projects in the

community of 40 College Street, where she and Bud lived for more than 15 years. Throughout her long and productive life, however, her priority was always her family. She often said the most important thing she ever did was to raise her three beloved sons and foster their growth and happiness in the world. On their behalf, she endured many cold and rainy Mother’s Day canoe trips with a smile and her trademark phrase, “Isn’t this fun!” A Cub Scout den mother (three times), she took an active interest in everything they did and gave them everything she possibly could, including the freedom to be who they would become. Her giving heart truly flourished as a grandmother to her 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. At that point, freed of most other adult responsibilities, she focused her still-considerable energy, talent and boundless love on them. No whim was too small or child’s game too silly for her — she loved meeting her children’s children (and their children) “where they were” and being fully present with them however they wanted. Elaborate and messy arts and crafts projects were common, and she playacted whatever roles were

needed for the creation of happy and memorable moments. As they aged, she offered them wise advice, an empathetic ear and the use of her car. She nurtured them all, and inspired them to thrive, by her example. Ruth is survived by her sons and their spouses: David (Magda Farag) of Tempe, Ariz., John (Julie Campoli) of Burlington, Vt., and Peter (Carol Irish) of Shelburne, Vt.; grandchildren Yasmin, Misha, Kareem, Clara, Simon, Thomas, Sara, Sami and Eben (and their spouses and partners); greatgrandchildren Hanna, Omar, Nora, Kareem, Youssef, Nadia and Lewis; sister-in-law Betsy Brown, of Kenosha, Wis.; and many dear nieces and nephews. She was predeceased by her husband, Bud Kassel; her brother, Ralph Bettman; her brother-inlaw, Howard Brown; and her beloved grandson Zeke. The family will gather privately to remember Ruth, when possible. In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to the Community Foundation of Orange and Sullivan Counties, N.Y. (an organization she cofounded), or ECHO, in Burlington, Vt., or a community service organization of your choice.

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. SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

arts news

I Live in the Land of Apples JoAnna Blaine Easton, Onion River Press, 176 pages. $14.99.

I gave up on my mother early, he [Easton’s twin brother] beat his head against her stony heart.

Short Takes on Five Vermont Books B Y M A R GA R ET GR AYSON, MA RGO T HA R R I SO N & K R I STEN R AV I N

even Days writers can’t possibly read, much less review, all the books that arrive in a steady stream by post, email and, in one memorable case, a passel of opossums. So this monthly feature is our way of introducing you to a handful of books by Vermont authors. To do that, we contextualize each book just a little and quote a single representative sentence from, yes, page 32. Inclusion here implies neither approval nor derision on our part, but simply: Here are a bunch of books, arranged alphabetically by authors’ names, that Seven Days readers might like to know about.

Miracles Come on Mondays Penelope Cray, Pleiades Press, 120 pages. $19.95.

Today the artist wants to paint in blue. But he is the red painter. The artist paints in red. This debut collection from Shelburne writer PENELOPE CRAY defies categorization. Walking the line between poetry and short story, Cray explores a variety of topics and forms, together with her wide-ranging cast of mysterious characters. Our page 32 quote comes from a meditation on creativity and an artist’s identity. Meteorites and personified balloons make multiple appearances in these pages. The Easter bunny is killed off. Body parts become objects of love and ire. Unafraid of the bizarre, Cray will surprise you, unsettle you and even make you squirm with each turn of the page. While every line here reads as deliberate, the intended message is far from obvious. It’s an adventure to follow Cray’s lantern through the landscape of her imagination without worrying too much about what it all means. Cray has been published in journals including Middlebury College’s New England Review; readers can watch a video of her reading from Miracles Come on Mondays at greenmountainsreview.com. M.G.

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Charlotte writer JOANNA BLAINE EASTON named her memoir for her father’s ancestral village: Mazraat el Toufah (“apple orchard”) in the mountains of Lebanon. “I am his child,” she writes of her second-generation-immigrant father, praising his “amber-eyed vision that cradled me.” The seventh child born to this father and an Irish Catholic mother, Easton remembers her mother less fondly, as the woman who essentially abandoned her and her twin brother to nuns for their first three weeks of life. The experience of “feeling unmothered” helped launch Easton on a “life as a seeker,” she writes. Her seeking has included studies of yoga and Jungian philosophy; travels in Europe, where Easton met Frau Engels, the spiritual mother or “motherangel” who fostered her artistic instincts; and long-time involvement in the arts. Rather than narrate her life chronologically, Easton takes a circling, lyrical approach, following intuitive associations and interspersing her remembrances with her own poems and quotes from the thinkers she admires. It’s the portrait of a woman whose seeking has borne fruit. M.H.

Poet, Prophet, Fox: The Tale of Sinnach the Seer: Book One: How the Fox Gained His Sight M.Z. McDonnell, Moose Maple Press, 304 pages. $19.

“The Faeries are punishing us for some secret crime known only to their vicious kind.” Achieving greatness rarely comes without struggle. Just look at the story of Sinnach the Seer. Described as a “queer mytho-history of ancient Ireland,” M.Z. MCDONNELL’s 2019 novel concerns a persecuted child who is seen by the world as the girl Muirenn but whose true self is a boy named Áedán. He fulfills his destiny as the powerful Druid prophet Sinnach, facing challenges in the human and faerie worlds along the way. As McDonnell, an ecologist and herbalist, explains in their author’s note, the novel is an amalgamation of facts rooted in scholarly research and products of the author’s imagination. “I wove together my understandings of Irish mythology, archaeology, folklore, linguistics, druidism and early medieval Irish history to create a more nuanced and layered story,” they write. Not familiar with Old Irish names and terms? The book includes a glossary and pronunciation guide for smoother reading. Poet, Prophet, Fox is an engaging and entertaining story that demonstrates the strength of a person’s true nature when they refuse to be bound to an assigned identity. K.R.

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Kate Messner, Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 240 pages. $16.99.

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Mia thought about what Daniel had said about the farm needing to grow to survive. Plattsburgh, N.Y., author KATE MESSNER — yup, she’s married to WPTZ meteorologist TOM MESSNER — has developed a reputation for tackling subjects that books for middle-grade kids typically avoid. In The Seventh Wish (2016), she wrote about heroin addiction. Her latest novel, Chirp, addresses sexual abuse, grooming and the #MeToo movement. If that sounds grim or disturbing, fear not: Messner has wrapped a sensitive, non-graphic treatment of those topics in a fun, upbeat story that tweens are bound to eat up. Twelve-year-old Mia, newly returned to Burlington from the big city, is eager to help her beloved grandma’s cricket farm thrive. A retired entomologist, Grandma hopes to sell crickets to the public as a “superfood.” (In her acknowledgments, Messner thanks Middlesex’s now-closed Flourish Farm, which had a similar mission.) But is someone trying to sabotage the cricket queen? To save the farm, Mia draws on new friends, local maker spaces and the power of a female entrepreneur network. Along the way, she gains the confidence to face a dark secret from her past. Grandma’s business may be buggy, but Messner’s message about trusting your instincts and speaking up is rock solid. M.H.

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Wealth Creation: A New Framework for Rural Economic and Community Development

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Shanna E. Ratner, Routledge, 162 pages. $38.95.

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Each business or partner must benefit from the value chain or they will not continue to participate. What if the word “wealth” signaled more than just economic power? SHANNA E. RATNER, founder of rural economic and community development firm Yellow Wood Associates, ponders this question in Wealth Creation: A New Framework for Rural Economic and Community Development. The former Mel King Community Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology argues for the consideration of community assets such as social, natural, political and intellectual capital as part of a reinvention of capitalism that leaves no one behind. Released by academic publisher Routledge in November 2019, Wealth Creation isn’t exactly a breezy beach read. The font is tiny and tight, and the lay reader may want to keep a highlighter handy to note novel concepts. Chapters delve into questions such as “What is a wealth creation value chain?” and “How do ownership and control change the game?” As Ratner writes in the preface, “If you are looking for a framework that will help you articulate and actualize your drive to reshape our world toward a more sustainable future, you have come to the right place.” K.R.

Contact: kravin@sevendaysvt.com, margaret@sevendaysvt.com, margot@sevendaysvt.com

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arts news

Pandemic Pastimes 4

ARTS

Virtual ventures from the creative sector B Y PAMEL A PO LSTO N

his is the fourth and final week of our online offerings series, though we’ll continue to report on compelling digital doings, here and on the Seven Days Live Culture blog, as long as the pandemic partners us with our laptops. Even as Vermont reopens a sliver of real life each week, social distancing is still the order of the day — and night. So we’ll persevere in suggesting ways you can engage and stay safe. Meantime, here are three options to watch, do and help.

WATCH

When you’re in the business of presenting live theater, a pivot to virtual productions can be … unacceptable. That pretty much sums up the feelings of CRISTINA ALICEA, artistic director of VERMONT STAGE. “A lot of theaters are doing stuff online, but it didn’t sit right with me,” she said in a phone call last week. “I felt resistant and was waiting for something more meaningful.” That something has manifested in the shape of a Virtual Time Capsule project, for which Alicea is inviting people to share their experiences during the coronavirus crisis and quarantine. “There are so many stories out there — harrowing and heartfelt,

THERE ARE SO MANY STORIES OUT THERE —

HARROWING AND HEARTFELT, SMALL AND LARGE. CRISTIN A ALICEA

Then, on Vermont Humanities’ Facebook page, join in a discussion with coproducer and Middlebury College assistant professor 26

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

small and large,” Alicia said. “I wondered what individuals and families are going through.” She’s not putting limits on the

COURTESY OF JEFFERY TACKIE

In pre-pandemic times, the VERMONT HUMANITIES First Wednesday talk series was held monthly in local libraries and other venues around the state. Since mid-April, the organization has offered weekly talks in digital form. Register by Monday to “attend” a free Wednesday talk. If you miss any, you’re in luck: All of them are archived in the “digital programs” section of vermonthumanities.org. This Wednesday’s pertinent talk, “The Salt of the Earth: The Rhetoric of White Supremacy,” starts with a viewing of the documentary Man on Fire, about a 79-year-old white minister in Texas who self-immolated in 2014 to protest racism in his town.

JAMES CHASE SANCHEZ about how communities might counter bigotry. Archived presentations include lectures on the “morbid nonsense” of artist Edward Gorey and KATHERINE PATERSON’s popular book (and film) Bridge to Terabithia; author-illustrator DAVID MACAULAY speaks on the building of the last great steamship, SS United States. Vermont Humanities’ archives include First Wednesday talks going all the way back to 2016, so give a listen or three. Animal Crossing will wait.

Zahara Abdi at the Karibu fashion show

forms such storytelling might take: “written, video, audio, photography, poetry, visual art, dance, song — whatever means through which you feel most comfortable expressing yourself,” according to a description on the Vermont Stage website. The day after Alicea announced the project, she got several responses, “including one from a woman who dressed up in a panda suit to cheer on [hospital staff ],” she said. “I’ll be interested to see what else comes in.” Will the collection of submissions result in a theatrical presentation someday? Probably, Alicea said. “But I don’t foresee us doing anything with this until next year, or maybe the year after that.” Her immediate objective with Virtual Time Capsule is to

engage with the public. “This feels more interactive than just sharing something online,” Alicea said. “I’m prompting people to express themselves, and that’s an engagement.” Want to share your story? Email Alicea at cristina@vtstage.org.

HELP

The Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity won’t let a global pandemic stand in the way of a good fashion show — and benefit. Every year, the Burlington-based nonprofit presents KARIBU — “welcome” in Swahili — to celebrate the cultural diversity of the area’s New Americans and to raise funds for asylum

seekers. CVOEO’s Asylum Seekers Assistance Program provides those seekers with help navigating the tangle of red tape and funds to purchase essential items, from food to diapers. This year, Karibu’s “runway” will be virtual — on Facebook. New American models will compete for cash prizes, and the public is encouraged to vote on finalists, as well as to donate to the program. Models, submit your photos by May 31 to karibuvt.com. Everyone else, check back at facebook. com/karibuvt. Winners will be announced on June 27. Donations for emergency funds can be made at cvoeo.org/karibuvt. Contact: pamela@sevendaysvt.com

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Server Salvation Streaming video review: “Upload” B Y M AR GO T HA R R I SON

COURTESY OF KATIE YU

here do we find entertainment these days? On our laptops and in our living rooms. The streaming options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. So, in this weekly feature, I review a movie or series that might otherwise be easy to overlook. THE SERIES: “Upload” (Season 1, 10 episodes, 2020) WHERE TO SEE IT: Amazon Prime Video

In 2033, no one has to die — no one who can afford to have their consciousness digitized and uploaded to a virtual afterlife, anyway. Twentysomething tech bro Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) hasn’t yet made provisions for his own untimely demise, which occurs in the pilot episode when his self-driving car rams itself into a truck. Luckily (or unluckily) for him, his imageobsessed girlfriend, Ingrid (Allegra Edwards), comes from a 1 percent family with “unlimited data.” As medical personnel fight for Nathan’s life, she persuades him to let himself be preemptively uploaded to the swanky Horizen Lakeview, a rustic grand hotel inside a computer server. (Exteriors were filmed in a real place: Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, N.Y.) Nathan’s digital afterlife may look like paradise, but it turns out to be a little creepy — and stuffed with paywalls and sponsored content. Even more disturbing: Ingrid can now delete his entire being from existence with a swipe of her finger. So maybe it’s not so great for Nathan that he’s feeling attracted to his “angel,” Nora (Andy Allo), a customerservice rep who’s supposed to help him adjust to his new plane of being. Unlike him, Nora is still alive, and she’s starting to suspect that Nathan’s death wasn’t an accident. THE DEAL:

First off, originality is not “Upload”’s strongest suit. Fans of the British anthology series “Black Mirror” will recognize this show’s premise from an Emmy-winning episode of that one. (I won’t name the episode, which is best experienced unspoiled.) The notion of people’s fates depending on consumer star ratings, also featured in “Upload,” was chillingly and hilariously explored in the “Black Mirror” episode “Nosedive.” And you know what? That’s fine. Some ideas are so rich in implications that they deserve multiple treatments. “Upload” creator Greg Daniels takes the “digital heaven” premise in new directions, imagining how class divisions might replicate themselves in a secular, corporate afterlife. Lakeview’s basement is full of low-rent souls, “two-gigs” whose heaven is limited to a bare room. Meanwhile, Nora and her fellow low-paid “angels” toil all day at their desks in VR goggles, tending to the needs of the affluent dead. Despite this dark vein of dystopian sci-fi, “Upload” is WILL YOU LIKE IT?

Robbie Amell and Andy Allo in “Upload”

basically a comedy. Daniels is known for his work on “The Simpsons,” “The Office” and “King of the Hill,” and the series can get broad and sitcom-ish. The attractive blandness of the visuals and the leads contributes to a certain network TV feel (without the network censorship — do expect a few flashes of nudity and gore). But if “Upload” is old-school TV, it’s good old-school TV — sharp, funny and inventive enough to keep me in binge mode. It’s hard not to root for Nathan and Nora’s seemingly doomed romance. Meanwhile, Edwards gives the juiciest performance, making Ingrid such an absolute horror that she comes full circle and becomes unexpectedly sympathetic. If the premise appeals to you, “Upload” is one to download. But expect some uncomfortable moments, given how virtually we’re all living these days. The show updates Hamlet’s dilemma: Which is better: not to be, or to be eternally inside some marketer’s version of heaven?

INGRID CAN NOW DELETE HIS ENTIRE BEING FROM EXISTENCE

WITH A SWIPE OF HER FINGER.

IF YOU LIKE THIS, TRY...

• “Black Mirror” (on Netflix): A version of “The Twilight Zone” for the computer age, Charlie Brooker’s series has been enormously influential — arguably even prophetic. One episode, “The Waldo Moment,” feels like satirical commentary on a certain presidential election but aired years earlier. • “The Good Place” (on NBC, Netflix and Hulu): Like “Upload,” this acclaimed NBC sitcom is a jokey vision of the afterlife that broaches big existential questions about fate, souls and free will. Call it Dante for a notso-devout era. • 2B: The Era of Flesh Is Over (rent it on Vimeo): For a more positive perspective on humanity’s digitized future, try this 2010 sci-fi film cocreated by a branch of the transhumanist Terasem Movement Foundation, which has a headquarters in Lincoln, Vt. Contact: margot@sevendaysvt.com

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT BY KEN PICARD

Why Is Federal Stimulus Money Being Sent to Dead Vermonters?

get an additional $500 for each child in the household under age 17. But what about dead relatives? Evidently, some next of kin are cashing in on them, albeit not of their own doing. Seven Days learned of at least three Vermonters who have received federal stimulus checks, or direct deposits into their bank accounts, payable to or intended for deceased family members. One died in 2018, the other two in 2019. “My mother received her stimulus check. She has been dead for two years. WTF?” Susanna Weller of Starksboro, wrote in an email about her mother, Mary Lou Weller, who died in January 2018 at age 77. Weller didn’t live with her mother but served as her medical and legal power of attorney and managed her estate upon her death. Weller said she suspects that the IRS sent the stimulus check to her address because her mother’s 2018 tax refund was deposited into a jointly held account. Something similar happened to an Essex woman who received a combined

direct deposit on behalf of herself and her husband, who died in January 2019. This isn’t a uniquely Vermont phenomenon. Other news outlets around the country have begun reporting similar stories of stimulus checks sent to departed relatives, as well as living people who aren’t entitled to them. According to the IRS, those ineligible for stimulus payments include prison inmates, undocumented immigrants, nonresident aliens, patients held in psychiatric facilities due to criminal offenses, and sexual predators in halfway houses. It’s unknown how many of the 130 million payments, totaling more than $200 billion in the first four weeks, went to people by mistake. But Vermonters who’ve received or are due to receive more than $450 million in stimulus payments aren’t storming federal offices to voice outrage over Uncle Sam’s excessive largesse. A spokesperson for Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said his staff hadn’t received any reports yet of federal stimulus checks sent to Vermonters’ deceased relatives. A spokesperson for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) declined to comment, explaining that constituents’ “casework” is considered confidential. However, a spokesperson for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said that his office has received “a half dozen” such reports from Vermonters whose dearly departed got stimulus money. “We even have our own examples of this within the Leahy staff family,” spokesperson David Carle noted in an email. Carle called such errors “hard to justify”

given the “dozens and dozens” of Vermonters who had not received stimulus payments by May 1, funds they need to pay their rent and other bills. He also bemoaned the fact that the IRS has yet to set up a system for making payments to low-income Vermonters who don’t have internet access or who didn’t file federal tax returns in the last two years. This isn’t the first time in history that stimulus money, Social Security payments and other federal disbursements have been sent to the great beyond. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, passed by Congress after the 2008 financial crisis, the feds sent nearly $18 million to more than 71,500 deceased Social Security recipients. Only about half of that money was eventually returned, a federal audit determined. Why are some Americans receiving posthumous payments? Alas, the Treasury Department’s press office declined to respond directly to Seven Days’ calls or emailed questions. Instead, a spokesperson emailed back largely nonresponsive answers cut and pasted from the department’s “frequently asked questions” web page. Coincidentally, several of those FAQ answers were added to the IRS Economic Impact Payment Information Center page on the same day as Seven Days’ query, suggesting that we’re not the only ones digging into such grave errors. What should Vermonters do with those checks? Despite some initial confusion over who gets to keep what, the IRS and Treasury Department are now telling citizens to return stimulus checks paid to people who are deceased. For direct deposits to the previously departed, Vermonters can send personal checks or money orders. For joint payments, the surviving spouse need return only the portion paid to the decedent. Detailed return instructions can be found at irs.gov. But it’s unclear whether the IRS will try to claw back past-due payments from the passed. If asked to fork over the funds, some American may well quote the late Charlton Heston: “From my cold, dead hands!” m

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fter Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law on March 27, the Internal Revenue Service started infusing the U.S. economy with $2.2 trillion. That included “economic impact payments,” aka stimulus checks, sent to Americans. Under the CARES Act, single adults who earned $75,000 or less in gross income in 2019 are entitled to a one-time payment of $1,200. Married couples can expect $2,400. And families with kids

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Contact: ken@sevendaysvt.com

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

INFO Got a Vermont head-scratcher that has you stumped? Ask us! wtf@sevendaysvt.com.

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RETAIL THERAPY BY KRISTEN RAVIN

Get the Picture Seven visual art items and where to buy them locally

COURTESY OF LIZ WALSH

or call 223-2902 for pickup or free local delivery. ALSO TRY: Art supplies from the Frame Dames in St. Johnsbury (theframedames.com).

“Faces and Figures” by Athena Petra Tasiopoulos

Central Vermont mixed-media collage artist Athena Petra Tasiopoulos’ work is recognizable by its soft, muted colors and found vintage photographs. “By re-inventing the portrait,” she writes in her artist statement, “I aim to disjoint my subjects from an antiquated identity, allowing them to transcend the constraints of time and place.” Vermonters looking to transcend the constraints of quarantine may find some respite in Tasiopoulos’ catalog “Faces and Figures.” Peruse this 44-page collection of mixed-media works on paper and get lost in Tasiopoulos’ soothing color palette, soft shapes and the faces of strangers. HOW TO BUY: Visit athenapetra.com for shipping. ALSO TRY: The graphic novel Off Season by Vermont cartoonist James Sturm from Crow Bookshop in Burlington (crowbooks.com).

Printmaking Explorer Box from the Drawing Board

COURTESY OF JESS POLANSHEK

n a recent phone conversation with Seven Days, Liz Walsh, owner of Montpelier art shop the Drawing Board, posed a question for Vermonters: “When this is all over, what do you want your community to look like?” Walsh is one of the state’s many small-business owners impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, having closed her doors mid-March to help slow the spread of the coronavirus. Since then, her customers, whom she describes as mostly hobby enthusiasts and a handful of professional artists, have supported the shop by snapping up art supplies and gift certificates via backdoor pickup or local delivery. Two loyal customers even donated money from their stimulus checks to help ensure the future of the brick-andmortar store. “There’s a palpable feeling of being in an art store and the potential that lies in all the materials, and you just can’t get that from ordering online,” Walsh said. For art lovers in isolation, the quarantine could be an opportunity to try a new medium. Folks may also decide to freshen up their homes by purchasing new artwork. As Whitney Aldrich, owner of Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery in Waterbury put it in an April email newsletter, “We know you’ve been spending a lot of time looking at your walls lately.” This week, our ongoing column focused on local shopping options highlights items related to making and appreciating visual art, whether you’re a longtime creator, a collector or preparing to make your first brushstroke. If you don’t see your favorite retailers here, seek them out. This list is by no means comprehensive.

Printmaking Explorer Box

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

OULOS

COURTESY OF ATHENA PETRA TASIOP

Sometimes the most difficult part of trying your hand at a new creative endeavor is having the right supplies. The Drawing Board in Montpelier makes it easy. The downtown shop’s online store includes curated art-supply kits for different mediums, such as the Acrylic Explorer Box, the Drawing Explorer Box and the Printmaking Explorer Box (pictured). The last includes everything you need to make block prints — ink, linoleum blocks, a rubber brayer and more — and can come with or without a cardboard suitcase-style carrier. HOW TO BUY: Order at drawingboardvt.com

Flower Messengers Small Card Pack

If Vermonters become overwhelmed by on-screen communication in this time of social distancing, perhaps letter writing will make a comeback. Those who wish to correspond through pen and paper can do so on cards designed by Vermont illustrator Jess Polanshek of Polanshek of the Hills. The artist renders subjects from the natural world with “high detail and loose realism.” Her Flower Messengers Small Card Pack features illustrations of animals

COURTESY OF DEVIN WOOD

bearing various flora, making them artistic — and adorable — vehicles for well-wishes. HOW TO BUY: Order from ofthehills.com for shipping. ALSO TRY: Assorted note cards by Vermont watercolor artist Cindy Gage Stotz from Artisans Hand Craft Gallery in Montpelier (artisanshand.com).

Burlington’s Pearl Street, for example, is selling digital gift certificates to be redeemed in the future. Scroll the shop’s Instagram page (@sevensymbols) to see neo-traditional work by artists Jazzie Beaudette, Jhon Rodríguez and owner Devin Wood, whose work is pictured here. Your tattoo will be worth the wait — it’s permanent, after all. HOW TO BUY: Email sevensymbolstattoo@ gmail.com. ALSO TRY: Prints and commissioned art by the artists available through their Instagram accounts (@jazzie.beau, @jhonrodriguez and @devinwoodtattoo).

Painting With Craig Mooney Future Tattoos

On March 23, Gov. Phil Scott ordered the closure of close-contact businesses, including tattoo shops, but body-art enthusiasts can still buy now and get inked later. Seven Symbols Tattoo on

Stowe’s Helen Day Art Center has a straightforward mission: “to enhance the human experience through the visual arts.” To that end, the nonprofit gallery and education center offers a wide range of classes for those looking to sharpen their artistic skills. Among its spring online offerings is Painting

With Craig Mooney for adults and teens. Taught by an award-winning local artist, this two-part virtual lesson on May 29 and 30 is a great opportunity to unleash your creativity in isolation. HOW TO BUY: Register at helenday.com. ALSO TRY: Online art classes for adults through the Middlebury Studio School (middleburystudioschool.org).

Framing Services

So you’ve spent your time in quarantine creating your masterpiece — how do you display it? At Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery in Waterbury, owner Whitney Aldrich brings a background in fine arts and graphic design to custom picture-framing projects. In addition to custom work, the shop offers ready-made frames, lamination, minor repairs and more. The gallery is closed, but framing services are available with consultations on a one-onone basis. HOW TO BUY: Call 244-7801 or email info@axelsgallery.com to schedule an appointment. ALSO TRY: Tabletop and wall frames f ro m Ho m e p o r t i n B u r l i n g t o n (homeportonline.com).

SHOP LOCAL

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With her new project, “Greetings From Coronacation: Souvenir Postcards From 2020,” Stephanie Salmon has come up with a colorful way to foster interpersonal connections while friends and families stay home and stay safe. Each volume holds 22 postcards featuring original comics by the Gotham City Graphics cofounder that folks can color, and then send to someone special. Sales benefit Thirty-odd, an artisan boutique in Burlington’s South End Arts District, where 30 or so artists and makers bring home 100 percent of their sales. HOW TO BUY: Order at thirtyodd.com for shipping or curbside pickup. ALSO TRY: Donate to Burlington maker space Generator’s COVID-19 Relief Initiative (generatorvt.com) to support production of personal protective equipment.

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

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

and say you saw it in... shoptheregister.com

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“Greetings From Coronacation: Souvenir Postcards From 2020,” Volumes 1 & 2 by Stephanie Salmon

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Envisioning Vermont’s post-pandemic future BY PAUL HEINTZ

ROB DONNELLY

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

he cascading coronavirus crises come at us so quickly these days that it can be challenging to keep up with the current news cycle, let alone consider the next. Our collective attention is rightly focused on the spread of COVID-19, which has contributed to the deaths of 53 Vermonters and infected more than 925. It’s rightly focused on outbreaks in long-term care facilities and prisons, on idled factories, bankrupt businesses, unemployment claims, emergency food lines, and the fiscal solvency of our schools and our state. But what comes next for Vermont — in six months or in six years? In what state will we find our state once the pandemic has passed? Gov. Phil Scott has compared the outbreak to a forest fire. Regular testing of the potentially infected “will allow us to spot those embers early,” he has said, and contact tracing by public health officials will enable us “to surround it in order to contain it.” How long the fire will smolder is anybody’s guess. When it’s finally extinguished, will it have taken the forest with it? Or will it have cleared the underbrush and opened the canopy, allowing the trees that remain to grow taller and stronger? For this week’s issue, we asked 15 Vermonters — community leaders, business chiefs and experts in their fields — to consider the fate of the state after the fire is out. Will our small towns and small businesses survive? How will we safely gather and learn and celebrate? Will we seize the opportunity to strengthen our health care and food systems? What must we save, and what can we afford to lose? How can we turn tragedy into opportunity? Here are excerpts from those conversations, edited for clarity and length.

CAUSE FOR PANIC

When Heather Darby was growing up on an Alburgh dairy farm, there were more than 3,000 dairies in the state. Now there are 651, according to the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, with many expected to close this year. “It’s devastating,” she said. “We shouldn’t be allowing the loss of any farms in Vermont.” A professor of agronomy at the University of Vermont Extension, Darby finds herself disconsolate about the perverse pair of crises exacerbated by the pandemic: Vermonters are going hungry even as farmers dump milk and plow under their fields. “It’s like, Holy shit. What’s wrong with this picture?” she said. “We’ve set up a system that doesn’t necessarily feed families. It feeds restaurants. It feeds wholesale markets. It wasn’t at all prepared to then have to flip a switch and feed families.” Darby, who is 45 and runs the now-diversified family farm, says the state must “refocus quickly to figure out how to feed the people of Vermont.” She added, “Empty store shelves should be worrisome, but empty fields should be cause for panic.”

‘THE BECKONING COUNTRY’

When Danby native Oliver Olsen came home to Vermont in 2003, he brought his job with him. Ever since, the 44-year-old Londonderry resident has worked remotely, now as director of professional services for Workday, a cloud-based financial management and human resources company.

What can we be doing right now? We can be helping farmers adapt to the growing need for food. I own a farm. I can’t just start doubling production today, even if I think we’ll have double the sales. We don’t have the labor. We don’t have the capital. We don’t have the infrastructure. We should be trying to understand: Will people’s preferences change forever? Or if farmers expand, will they be sorry in two months when everything opens back up, because consumers will just go back to what they were doing before? Do you see a silver lining? The silver lining is that consumers are reaching out to local farmers. We’re in a moment many of us have dreamed about — where farmers become the center of our communities again, instead of how they’ve been perceived in Vermont, for the most part, like this ecological nightmare. So I think it’s changing the way people view the agricultural landscape, and that’s really positive, because people need to understand that we need farmers. It’s just too bad it took a pandemic to get people to turn around and go to their local farmer for food.

Manhattan are doing so from Vermont. “They’re not battling a one-hour commute through traffic or crowded subway systems with people sneezing in their face,” he said. “I think one of the takeaways from this pandemic is that, while population density affords many benefits in a highly populated world, it also presents some very challenging public health risks,” Olsen

You can work remotely from Vermont _ not just Westchester County, N.Y. O L I V E R OL SEN

So, when the pandemic forced many professionals out of the office in March, Olsen’s life didn’t change much. “For those of us who have been doing this for two decades, it’s nothing new,” he said. Olsen, a former state representative, has expressed concerns that virus-fleeing second-home owners could overwhelm local health care systems in ski resort communities such as his own. But he also sees an opportunity to address Vermont’s demographic challenges by convincing them to stay. Already, according to Olsen, some people who ordinarily run multinational companies from downtown

continued. “So there’s gonna be some really interesting opportunities as people rethink their living arrangements.” How can we capitalize on that? I think what’s going to be really helpful is making clear that not only can you work remotely, but you can work remotely from Vermont — not just Westchester County, N.Y. To the extent we can tell those stories, I think that will help sort of paint this picture of Vermont as Vermont Life did back in the ’60s, as “the beckoning country.”

Do you see any drawbacks to that sort of urban flight? If this were to take shape, we’re still gonna have the same challenges we always have — namely, we have a workforce shortage in a lot of supporting industries, if you will, so we’ll start running into capacity issues. We’re gonna need more plumbers and electricians. We don’t have enough today. What are your biggest longterm fears? We could end up in a situation where, on the one hand, we have an opportunity to market Vermont as this wonderful place to come to if you want to get out of an urban area. But if we have village centers and downtown areas where three-quarters of the resorts and shops are shuttered because they couldn’t survive the cash-flow crisis they’re facing right now, that’s a difficult package to sell.

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‘WELLSPRING’

Alex Crothers spends most of his day “talking about what the new normal is going to look like” in the music industry. “It’s the same conversation over and over,” he said. “It feels like you’re in [the movie] Groundhog Day because nobody has any answers.” The 44 -year- old founder and co-owner of South Burlington’s Higher Ground music club recognizes and accepts that his business will be among the last allowed to reopen. “We’re in the business of mass gathering,” he said. “We bring people together. It’s the basis of everything we do.” Even after such gatherings are permitted again, it’s not like Crothers will be able to flip a switch and welcome a major musician back onstage. The nationally touring acts his company books for events, such as Ben & Jerry’s Concerts on the Green at Shelburne Museum, “have really long lead times setting up their tours, announcing them, putting tickets on sale,” said Crothers, who lives in Burlington. And few bands

will bother rebooking tours until most of the country reopens. “So COVID has created a disruption in that cycle that, depending on how long it lasts, it’s at least a six- or eight-month disruption,” he said. How can people more safely gather in the post-COVID era? We’ve been doing a livestreaming show every night since we decided to close the club. It’s been incredibly cathartic, but it’s not a business model, just something to have fun. We’re talking about whether there’s a way to bring people together drive-in-movie-style, where people stay in the car. How will the industry change because of this? It’s gonna have a dramatic effect. Independent music venues are small businesses, and small businesses are going to take it in the teeth. So there’s going to be a constriction, and that’s going to be tough. I think we’re also going to see an incredible wellspring of creative talent. We’ve just shut artists in

their houses for seven weeks. Artists have to keep creating, and we’ve just given them space where they have very little distraction because there hasn’t been much to do. What kind of government support are you seeking? Certainly, dollars in the bank are gonna help. From a local or state level, if they can’t provide dollars, they can provide some type of tax relief, whether it’s abatement of the sales tax or the rooms and meals tax. Those types of things will help provide a runway to get us back up and running. There could also be some regulatory things, like allowing us to hand a can of beer to a customer and watch them open it. It’s a very small thing, but technically right now it’s against the law.

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There are going to be institutions and enterprises that don ’t survive. DAN SMITH

to this pandemic, our biggest underlying challenges were, frankly, demographics and workforce. I think related to both of those was sort of the sense of economic malaise that was in place.” The 45-year-old Burlington resident, who previously ran Vermont Technical College, is particularly concerned about the fate of that institution and the rest of the Vermont State Colleges System. “There is no publicly articulated strategy for higher education across all the public entities that exist,” he said. “To me, it was the legislature’s responsibility to articulate that strategy and to fund it.” 34

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

standings and races and ethnicities in ways we all knew were not civilly or socially sustainable. What keeps me awake is that we’ll somehow miss the chance to build a much stronger and more resilient economic environment. Are there some institutions that should be allowed to fail? I think, regardless of how hard we work in this next 18-month window, there are going to be institutions and enterprises that don’t survive. The key is to recognize

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that it’s not necessarily because of the pandemic that they won’t survive. In a lot of cases, it’s because of underlying trends, underlying demographics or an underlying lack of strategy that might have informed different decisions by public or private funders.

A rural life survey conducted last summer for Vermont Public Radio and Vermont PBS found that 40 percent of those polled could not afford an unexpected $1,000 expense. Nearly half said they would advise an 18-year-old to leave the state to build a successful life or career. “It’s been a pretty tough place to make a go of it,” said Vermont Community Foundation president and CEO Dan Smith, whose organization underwrote the survey. “Prior

: JE

‘TOUGH PLACE TO MAKE A GO OF IT’

What keeps you up at night? The knowledge that in Vermont — and, frankly, I think nationally — the pandemic didn’t land on an economy and civil society that was particularly healthy. We were deeply divided based on the lived experience of people in different regions and states and economic

How do you think the nonprofit world is going to fare in this crisis? People’s response in this moment around philanthropy and giving has been incredibly inspiring. You take away from that that Vermonters of all stripes are really committed to the health and well-being of their neighbors in a crisis. I’m worried, though, that the pandemic will accelerate existing trends, like the decline in giving that has played out over the past decade. I think that’s going to put an incredible amount of pressure on the nonprofit community and, at some level, the state, because it relies on the nonprofit community to provide so many core services.

A SECOND CHANCE

Even before the coronavirus hit Vermont, Aly Richards and her spouse had a hard enough time finding affordable childcare for their 17-month-old twin boys. Like many Vermonters, they relied on family to ease the burden — in their case, Richards’ parents and grandmother, who live in Newbury. Now, the 34-year-old Montpelier resident and her brood spend half their time quarantining in Newbury, where Richards takes part in Zoom meetings from her childhood bedroom and the older generations help look after the twins. “I don’t know how other people are doing it,” she said. As CEO of Let’s Grow Kids, a nonprofit focused on increasing access to early childhood education, Richards

‘WE’VE HAD ENOUGH’

Early studies have found that, nationally, people of color have been infected with and killed by COVID-19 at disproportionate rates. Researchers suspect that health and economic disparities are to blame. In Vermont, the Department of Health didn’t even collect data on the race and ethnicity

When the U.S. sneezes, people of color get the flu. TABITH A MO O R E

of coronavirus patients until civil rights groups spoke out. “In a way, it serves as validation that the work we do matters because, left to their own devices, the majority won’t pay attention to the minority,” said Tabitha Moore, state director of the NAACP. Moore, a 42-year-old Wallingford resident, said that, anecdotally, Vermonters of color appear to be suffering more from the outbreak. “For example, I

spends her days trying to help families facing similar challenges. For now, she says, Vermont is doing better than most states because it has chosen to bail out the childcare industry, providing “stabilization” grants of 50 to 100 percent of private tuition. But the transition back to a fully functioning system — which Gov. Scott announced last week would begin June 1 — could be perilous, with small class sizes straining programs. One bright spot? The importance of Let’s Grow Kids’ mission is now abundantly clear. “We’re hopeful that, after witnessing the true impacts of life without childcare, we can really come together to strengthen the system,” Richards said. Do you expect a lot of programs to close? Across the country, yes. In Vermont, I think fewer. If you could recommend one policy change post-pandemic to strengthen childcare, what would it be? I would say wage supplements to early educators. People are going to be dusting themselves off and asking, “What do I do with myself in this economy?” It would really change things if being an early childhood educator was a really viable profession that allows you to put food on the table. What are your biggest fears? My biggest fear is missing the opportunity that’s ahead of us. People say, “If we were starting from scratch, we would’ve done it differently.” Well, we have that chance.

‘COMMAND AND CONTROL’

What does Rob Roper think of the power that state government has exercised during the coronavirus outbreak? “It sucks, and you can put that quote in there,” he said. “It’s a command and control economy.” Roper, president of the conservative Ethan Allen Institute and a former chair of the Vermont Republican Party, has long sought a more limited government. The 51-year-old Stowe resident sees the pandemic-induced economic crisis as confirmation of his worst fears. “It’s been devastating,” he said. “This is shattering the foundation of what was already a crumbling economic foundation to begin with.” What can we do about it? This is where my optimism is: It’s forcing our state government to figure out how to reform a system that was in desperate need of reform, but there was no political will to do it. So I think it’s an opportunity for a reset. This response really calls for a much more free-market approach.

think about our migrant communities, who are incredibly fearful because our president is shutting down avenues of support for immigrants and migrants,” she said. “There’s a saying that when the U.S. sneezes, people of color get the flu.” What can leaders in Vermont do to address these racial disparities? Policy makers need to recognize that it is the marginalized people who are the litmus test for whether or not what they’re doing is working. So it’s smarter for them to include marginalized populations from the get-go, because how well you do is based on how well your most disenfranchised people are faring. What opportunities can we find in this crisis? My hope is that the people who have been kind of beaten down the most — the essential workers who’ve been barely making enough working 40 hours a week — that they say, “We’ve had enough,” and that those of us who are salaried support them. Because they’re the ones keeping us going: the migrant workers who are doing all the jobs that we wouldn’t do even when there wasn’t a crisis. That they’re getting their due.

To be clear, do you think the state should not have imposed the restrictions it did? I don’t have a medical background, and I’m not going to play doctor and say you shouldn’t have done this. I pray to God they made the right decision, but I won’t question it. Are there institutions we must save? Ones we can let go of? If you have a shrinking tax base and larger obligations, something’s gotta give. I would hope we can find a more streamlined way to deliver K-12 education, given all the online learning going on. I think a lot of the stuff we’ve been spending on, like electric vehicle subsidies and charging stations, are probably not going to be a top priority for a lot of Vermonters when we get to the end of this. What’s your biggest fear? You’re gonna get a lot of special interest groups that say, “We’re too big to fail” or “Our issue is too important,” and they’re gonna put a lot of pressure on legislators to raise taxes to fill those buckets. And the attempt to do so is going to really send us into a tailspin.

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I think being forced into using the videoconferencing modality to do more video arraignments will keep diminishing the amount of sheriffs’ time transporting defendants and allowing for greater reassurance that it does work that way and it’s not harming anybody’s due process rights. Other than that, I don’t see the judiciary changing much at all.

COURT-ZOOM

When Marilyn Skoglund retired from the Vermont Supreme Court last year, she was hoping to take up bartending. But with her local watering holes mostly dry, the 73-year-old juris emerita has instead been “putzing around” her Montpelier home, where a daughter and son-in-law have sought refuge from Boston. “Oddly enough, it’s hard to tell there’s anything different in my life. I isolate a lot. I’m home sewing masks for my friends,” she said. “And, meanwhile, I’m practicing making my son-in-law and myself a vodka tonic.” This pandemic has prompted some major short-term changes to the judiciary in Vermont. What long-term changes do you foresee?

Do you think it should? You’re still going to need jurors to test the witness on the stand. Zoom is never going to replace live testimony. What’s your biggest fear coming out of this? What I fear is that we’re going to become more and more angry with one another and more and more hateful. I think there will be more protests and viciousness. It’s going to get worse before it gets better and people come together.

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pants down, so to speak, because we couldn’t get it just-in-time when everyone else was trying to get it just-in-time.” Chen, 67, hopes industry leaders learn from their mistakes and fix what’s broken, including a fee-for-service revenue model that has left hospitals in dire financial straits because they haven’t been able to perform moneymaking procedures. His biggest fear? “That we’ll just go right back to the way things were,” Chen said, “and that we won’t take time to digest what we’ve been through and what needs to be different.”

HARRY CH E N

Do you think this will accelerate the trend of consolidation in the health care system or arrest it? I think that needs to be part of the discussion. On the one hand, on a regular, everyday basis in Vermont, we probably have more hospital capacity than we need. At the same time, we probably didn’t have enough capacity for a crisis like this. So we have to be careful. AL W

The whole concept of going to work sick is totally different now.

Vermont’s medical providers have acquitted themselves well during the coronavirus crisis, according to Dr. Harry Chen, but the pandemic has exposed glaring failures in the broader health care system. Case in point: the dearth of personal protective equipment at hospitals around the country as the outbreak raged. “We’ve tried to make health care so lean and justin-time,” said Chen, a former state health commissioner and emergency room doctor who lives in Burlington. “We got caught with our

‘PANTS DOWN’

What opportunities are there for post-pandemic Vermont? The whole concept of going to work sick is totally different now. It should be. Frankly, I’m as guilty as anyone. You get sick and you go to work, and you plow through it just because that was your job. But now it’s part of the collective responsibility to not go to work sick. At the same time, we have to create the conditions — that’s what public health does — in which people can take time off without losing their jobs, much less their incomes. What keeps you up at night? I worry about the effects of all this on mental health, whether it be anxiety or the physical contact we’re trying to avoid. In medicine, we talk a lot about therapeutic touching — sitting down next to a patient and laying down your hands. In the COVID era, now we do it through an impermeable divider with an iPad. So we have to figure out how to get back to some of that — obviously, in a measured pace — because that’s part of the human connection we all need.

Alan Newman doesn’t expect Vermont to be back in business anytime soon. “I know our idiot president is trying to open the economy to win the election, but I think that’s going to backfire,” he said. “I’m not a fan of Phil Scott. I find him overly conservative. But at times like this, conservative isn’t a bad strategy, and I think he’s made the right moves.”

25 or 30 years ago that stuck with me, and I found it to be true, always. They asked him how he could predict the future. He said, “Well, I don’t. There are patterns, and I just follow them.” One of the patterns he talked about was bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, smaller. Everything starts to grow, and at some point it reaches maximum size and it explodes into a bunch of small pieces again. I think we’re now seeing the retraction of the big-box stores and a return to the small specialty stores. And I think we’re seeing more and more people moving online.

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A DARWINIAN DISEASE

I think that, long term, there could be some real positives coming out of this. A L A N NEW M AN

Newman, a 73-year-old Burlington resident, knows a thing or two about how businesses work. He helped create three of Vermont’s most enduring brands: Seventh Generation, Gardener’s Supply and Magic Hat Brewing. “It’s going to be a slow opening,” he predicted. “Regardless of what politicians say, I think consumers are going to be the ones who drive the speed at which we open up, and I think they’re wary.”

What have we learned? The pandemic has really demonstrated a number of things. No. 1, it’s demonstrated we really are a global society. This concept that we’re small, little nations unto ourselves, that’s just garbage. From a purely practical standpoint, I think what we’ve learned is, we’ve gotta deliver reasonably rapid internet to rural areas.

If you were starting a business post-pandemic, what would you be looking at? Something with very low overhead so that, going forward, it could remain as flexible as possible.

What needs to change? What the pandemic has done economically is, it’s — medically, economically, I think any way you look at it — it’s been Darwinian. It’s attacked the weakest. Some weeding is going on. While we’ve been talking about online education for years, and while I’ve seen a million pitches for a better online education system, what the pandemic is doing is,

Do you think people’s buying patterns will change in the long term because of this? You know Buckminster Fuller? He had this line I heard

INN DISTRESS

Near the top of Liz Bankowski’s list of things to worry about is the fate of Vermont’s smallest towns. “We tend to see things through the lens of Chittenden County,” the 72-year-old Brattleboro resident said. “The rest of Vermont isn’t that way.” Bankowski, who served as chief of staff to former governor Madeleine Kunin, was president and CEO of the Windham Foundation until last month. The nonprofit’s mission is to preserve the rustic character of the tiny town of Grafton. It also operates Grafton Village Cheese and the Grafton Inn. When the pandemic struck, Bankowski said, “It felt like I was looking into an abyss. You are almost paralyzed. How do you even begin to think about what

happens after this? Then you say to yourself, You only need to get through this day, this week, this month.” T h e f o u n d a t i o n ’s businesses are surviving — for now. But Bankowski wonders when the state’s tourism economy will rebound and the Grafton Inn will again be fully booked. “We really rely on weddings and gatherings and board meetings. That’s our economic engine. It’s not clear that they’re coming back anytime this year,” she said. “If it’s a long time before we can hold those events, we will not survive.” How long do you think it will be before people feel comfortable traveling to Vermont?

it’s driving an upgrade to the education system. The same thing for medical. Why is it we need to go into a doctor’s office for 80 percent of our health needs? So I think that, long term, there could be some real positives coming out of this, whether it be wiping out the unhealthiest costs of the medical system or whether it’s wiping out the unhealthiest costs of the educational system.

Anecdotally, you get the feeling that people want to get out of their cities, and they want to come to Vermont. We’re relatively small entities in Vermont. We don’t need hundreds of people. We just need the loyal ones to come back. The question is, how long until we can start renting rooms again? How is Brattleboro faring? Every time I drive up Main Street, I wonder what won’t be there. All those signs that say “closed” — how many of them will remain up? The margins are thin. The coffee shop and the sandwich shop and the food store — their margins are thin, and they’ve had no income now for a number of months, so I think they’re all in peril. Any reasons for optimism? If we have to live through this, I think we’re all feeling, Well, I’m glad we lived through it here.

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STRESS TEST

As executive director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, Ellen Kahler has spent years challenging people to think more deeply about the state’s food and energy systems. Now, the coronavirus crisis is forcing just such a conversation. “I think it presents an opportunity to rethink what we really want out of a restart,” said Kahler, 53, of Starksboro. How do you think the coronavirus will change Vermont in the long term? The mid- and longer-term opportunity that we’ve been presented with through this pandemic related to our economy is to refocus on shortening supply chains for essential products that we all use every day, like food. That also includes things like energy sources — for instance, wood chips, wood pellets, firewood, solar and community-scale wind. You’re keeping those most important components of

How do we address that? We need to be investing in increasing our processing capacity and warehousing and distribution. It’s not enough to just produce it. You have to move it. You have to store it. In some cases, you’re freezing it or lightly processing it.

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Vermonters have never embraced change, according to FreshTracks Capital cofounder Cairn Cross. “There’s this general, collective interest in things remaining the same — and the ‘same’ being pegged to, I don’t know, the 1940s,” he said. But the coronavirus crisis will force the state to adapt, the 61-year-old Ferrisburgh resident believes, and to address systemic challenges. “You know that saying where, by the fourth generation, all the wealth is gone?” Cross said. “That’s like Vermont. We’re a couple generations from the 1940s or whatever [was] the high-water mark of what we think Vermont should be, and we’ve squandered our resources. But yet we’ve wanted to keep up appearances, so we’ve continued to underfund the pensions and the state colleges. We’ve done all these things and kept going rather than making those really difficult choices.” What exactly needs to change? What we really need at the leadership level is to all agree on 20 big problems the state faces, and then we get rational and say, “We can’t solve 15 of these, but here are five we can solve.” The other stuff we will simply let go.

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE

Social distancing doesn’t come naturally to Monique Priestley. The 34-year-old web developer has spent years trying to bring neighbors together in her Upper Valley town of Bradford. Central to that effort has been the Space on Main, the coworking venue she founded two years ago in a shuttered five-and-dime store. “Community is what we’ve really needed,” she said. “That piece of it is still important — maybe more important right now.” With the Space on Main mostly closed to comply with Vermont’s stay-at-home order, Priestley has been finding other ways to connect. A new group she helps lead, Bradford Resilience, is engaged in what she calls “grassroots emergency response.” Volunteers have been picking up groceries and prescriptions for their neighbors, writing thank-you notes to first responders, sewing masks, and even gathering trash around town.

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Priestley said she doesn’t know what the future holds for the Space on Main, but she hopes that community members will stay engaged once the pandemic passes.

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what we need every day produced more locally and keeping those dollars circulating in our economy. When you have longer supply chains, it actually makes us more vulnerable.

This pandemic is kind of a test case of our capacity. How do you think our food systems are faring? After [Tropical Storm] Irene, we had communities cut off for weeks, but we found ways to get food supplies into those communities. We have not until now been tested with longer-term, widerspread emergencies, which could happen with back-toback hurricanes coming up the East Coast, for instance, or massive rain events that wipe out entire crops in the state. And those things can still happen. There has not been an emergency feeding plan for this kind of widespread lack of food so many Vermonters are experiencing right now with this particular type of pandemic.

How do you think it will affect small towns like Bradford? For the last decade, volunteerism has been dying. But as soon as we put out a request saying, “Your neighbor needs your help,” 86 people signed up. I’m hoping people will keep paying more attention to their neighbors and the needs of their communities. What opportunities do you see for rural Vermont? Vermont has so many small businesses, entrepreneurs in the woods. And each town, because of this, has been trying to create business directories to support them. I’ve heard over and over, “I had no idea we had that many businesses in town.” So I think there’s a huge opportunity to be a little more aware of the people in your community.

‘SAD STORIES’

How can restaurants safely operate in the coming months? Corona’s not going away. This is something we’re going to live with for a long time. As individuals, we need to take into account what level of risk we’re comfortable with. And, for me as a restaurant owner, I would like for the doors to be open and for signage to say things like, “Please be respectful of everyone’s space. Here are all the things we’re doing to make as clean an environment as possible.”

Two months ago, chef-owner Eric Warnstedt and his business partner, Will McNeil, employed 170 people at their four restaurants: Hen of the Wood locations in Waterbury and Burlington, Prohibition Pig in Waterbury, and Doc Ponds in Stowe. Now, just two employees remain on the payroll. They help the owners handle takeout nights, which rotate among the restaurants. “It’s crazy,” said Warnstedt, 44, of Waterbury Center. The restaurant group applied for and received funding through the federal Paycheck Protection Program. But the low-interest loans are forgivable only for

How will your business change when it does reopen? We’ll probably have more limited offerings. We’re going to really refocus on our farmer relations, our brewer relations. If we used Untitled-3 1

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businesses that hire back most of their employees — an impractical solution for restaurants that must remain closed. So Warnstedt is desperately hoping for government assistance better tailored to the industry. Without it, he warns, many restaurants will reopen, but most of those could close again within months. “We think we’re going to see some really sad stories come up,” he said. In your ideal world, what kind of support would the state provide? We really need six to eight months of some fixed-cost coverage just to keep the doors open, the lights on, to get through this. If a restaurant is open for a month, and it’s only allowed to seat outdoors with sixfeet spacing for tables, there’s literally no way that you can pay rent, pay your staff. So, if we are going to take this phased approach [to reopening the economy], which we support, there’s no way to do it and be financially viable.

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MATTHEW THORSEN

Corona’s not going away. This is something we’re going to live with for a long time.

5/11/20 11:54 AM

to have 24 taps and 12 were from Vermont, when we reopen we’ll have 12, and all 12 will be from Vermont. Is that for philosophical or practical reasons? It’s a combination. It gets us back to why we’re doing this. And if we’re only gonna do a third of the business, there’s no need for as many options. We can make it worth your while without 24 beer options. Do you see any silver lining? I can’t say I really do. I do think this period of time has been beneficial for a lot of us if we can get out of our own heads and reconnect with our homes, our families. But the overwhelming fear of my business failing, my friends’ businesses failing, sort of overrides the goodness. So do I see a silver lining from corona? I don’t think I do. Contact: paul@sevendaysvt.com

We have been listening to WDEV for as long as we can remember, and we wanted to say thank you for always being there and putting on a great show that is informative and entertaining. We listen every day, and always have the radio going in the car and at home. We rely on you to keep us up to speed on the news, and for companionship as well. We love listening to the great music, especially when it comes with an interesting anecdote or fact, as it helps us learn more about our favorite artists. We also love the careful attention and commitment you give to local and international news coverage. It's so comforting to hear a familiar friendly voice talk about issues that matter to us. Your passion never wavers, and it's clear to all who listen that you truly care about the great service you are providing our community. We remember Tropical Storm Irene, and cannot thank you enough for all you did for us then, and continue to do for us now. During these times of great uncertainty, one thing is never in doubt, and that is our local WDEV family always being there for us. We're here for you too. We're listening, and we love you. Thank You, Evelyn & Zach

Locally-Owned, Locally-Operated and a Vital Part of the Community For 89 Years!

STREAMING SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

wo months ago, as the coronavirus pandemic started affecting daily life, therapist Bradie Hansen said she became aware of a growing sense of shared stress and anxiety, something she hadn’t felt since the terrorist attacks on 9/11. ”Especially in the beginning weeks of social distancing/quarantining,” she said, ”it felt like every day there was a new bit of information to take in, make sense of, assimilate and adjust to.” Hansen, whose office is in Burlington, had to get used to working from home in Shelburne alongside her husband — who was also working from home — and their two children, ages 9 and 12. She had to manage herself and her own anxiety, parent effectively, and serve her clients. A Star Wars fan, Hansen likened the process of managing her own emotions to “Jedi training.” She imagined herself as Luke Skywalker on Dagobah during the Empire Strikes Back, levitating rocks with his mind while doing a one-hand handstand, Jedi Master Yoda perched atop one of his upturned feet. In the movie, Luke maintains that position for just a moment before everything comes crashing down, but Hansen really needed to stay balanced. So she was excited to hear about a new free web series from the Vermont Center for Family Studies called “Stuck Together-Stuck Apart: Family Success During Quarantine.” Launched in April, the series consists of hourlong Zoom sessions that include a lesson from the center’s faculty or an outside researcher, as well as an opportunity for short breakout discussions and a Q&A. The webinars began as a tool to help therapists and others in “helping professions,” said center director Erik Thompson. But they’re also open to clients and family members, some of whom have attended multiple sessions. Topics such as “Quarantine Parenting” and “Couples in Quarantine” appeal to a wider audience. Hansen likened the free webinars to “a personal tune-up,” an opportunity to refocus herself and hear smart people grapple with the intense 40

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

Me Time A free webinar series provides a “personal tune-up” during the pandemic challenges we’re all facing right now. “Talking about all of this normalizes the amount of anxiety that people are feeling,” she said. The presenters often discuss how they apply the material to their own families — or how they struggle with that. Hansen appreciates their candor. The sessions, she said, are “just super relatable.”

‘MORE HELPFUL THAN ANYTHING ELSE’ The webinars, like all of the Vermont Center for Family Studies programming, are grounded in Bowen Family Systems Theory, developed by psychiatrist Murray Bowen (19131990). At its core, this approach is a way of thinking about how families and groups of people function. The Vermont center is part of a

national network of similar organizations devoted to studying and teaching Bowen’s theory. Founder Ann Bunting received degrees from Harvard University and the University of Maryland before studying with Bowen at the Georgetown University Family Center. Bunting moved to Vermont in 1985 and began running conferences and seminars about Bowen’s work in 1989. She brought together a group of her students to found the nonprofit center in 1997. Thompson, the center’s current volunteer director, is a leadership psychologist who traces his involvement back to Bunting. She changed his life. “I wouldn’t have this whole career without her,” he said. Years ago, Thompson was having marital problems. “I was kind of on my knees,” he confessed. A trained

psychologist, he was using all of his skills to improve his marriage, “and everything I learned was making it worse.” Bunting introduced him to Bowen Family Systems Theory, which treats the family or the group of people as the client, rather than just the individual. “It was more helpful than anything else I’d ever encountered,” Thompson said. The big insight: He had to better understand the role he was playing in the things he wished would change. “There’s a famous story about Ann Bunting,” he said. One day, she was approached by an adult woman who complained bitterly about her mother and their toxic relationship. Bunting asked the woman, “How would you rate yourself as a daughter?” In other words, each individual plays a role in a family dynamic. Bowen theory encompasses eight concepts, such as Differentiation of Self, Triangles and Nuclear Family Emotional Process, as well as some background “assumptions. The latter include Chronic Anxiety, Basic Life Forces and Family as an Emotional Unit. All of these are detailed on the Vermont Center for Family Studies website. If that makes your eyes glaze over, don’t start there; try watching one of the webinars instead. They’re all available for free on the center’s YouTube channel. The useful and timely lessons might help you think differently about the dynamics in your own currently overcrowded household.

‘I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY’ For example, the “Couples in Quarantine” session on May 7 started out by pushing back on the advice contained in an April New York Times article, “How to Get Your Partner to Take On More Emotional Labor.” The article advises that the first step in this process is to talk about it. But just “throwing talking at the problem” isn’t enough, said presenter Sarah Davis, a psychiatric nurse practitioner and a center faculty member. Often, she said, one partner in a relationship says to the other: “I really want to do this differently. We just had an argument. Let’s prevent

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

hourlong sessions help her consider her own responsibility in the couple relationship and “how to keep going on a smooth path.”

‘ACCESS TO A SENSE OF AGENCY’

A group of Vermont Center for Family Studies faculty and trainees during a training program meeting

MORE INFO Learn more about the Vermont Center for Family Studies and its free webinar series at vermontcenterforfamily studies.org. Sessions take place on Zoom Thursdays at 2 p.m. Preregistration is required; email vcfsoﬃce@gmail.com.

this from happening next time — and here’s what I think you might do better. That’s essentially what we’re often saying, right?” Davis recommends a different approach, starting with owning the role you play in the problem. Her second slide explains some tips for “effective processing”: “I take responsibility for my part in this. I am responsible for myself and how I feel. I can tolerate my discomfort without blaming you for it. I am responsible for calming myself down.” Reminders like these are helpful to Hadley Abernathy, director of children, youth and families at the Charlotte Congregational Church. Abernathy has been involved with the center since 2004 — in fact, Ann Bunting is her mother-in-law. Her family connection notwithstanding, Abernathy has found the center’s programming useful and has appreciated the prompts to focus on herself. After all these years, Abernathy said, she still needs a reminder that, to get a difficult situation under control, “the most powerful thing is to manage self — and it’s really hard.” She and her husband are both working at home in South Burlington accompanied by their three children, ages 6, 10 and 13. Abernathy said the

webinars make her feel optimistic: “I can get through all of the frustrations if I can just manage myself,” she said. She also pointed out that, for her, the sessions are a time “to reflect and calm down a little bit. It’s like prayer or anything else,” she said. “It’s just an hour of being exposed to the deep wisdom they have at the center.” Another attendee, Sue Wiles, no longer has kids at home, but she has also found the webinars useful. “To me, they bring a sense of calmness to this wild time,” she said. “It sort of gives me a different road map of how I should be driving at this time.” Wiles is not a therapist — she’s the center’s bookkeeper and assists with organizing conferences. But she’s equally invested in Bowen Theory. Like Thompson, she traces her involvement back to Bunting. Years ago, when Wiles and her husband had teenagers at home, they were looking for someone to help them navigate some family issues. Two different people in her life, unknown to each other, recommended that Wiles see Bunting. She followed up on the suggestion, which turned out to be a good one. Now that their kids are adults, she and her husband are quarantined together, just the two of them. The

In addition to the free webinars, the Vermont Center for Family Studies hosts regular conferences on Bowen Theory. The next one, “Perspectives on Family Theory and Psychotherapy,” takes place on the morning of June 5. Like the webinars, it will be conducted virtually, though it will require an attendance fee. The short presentations cover a variety of topics and provide a primer on Bowen Theory. This year they include: “What Is Bowen Theory?” “Depression, Neuro-Inﬂammation and Bowen Theory” and “Perspectives on Rewiring the Anxious Brain From Bowen Theory and Neuroscience.” By the beginning of June, Vermonters could be stuck in the house a little less. Regardless, the free weekly webinars will continue. This Thursday, May 14, the presenter is Dr. Laurie Lassiter, a researcher from Amherst, Mass., who will speak about the neuro-physiology of connection. Thompson described the talk as “more geeky” than some of the others. It will delve into a study that used fMRIs (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to identify regions of the brain that activate when a research subject feels lonely. If nothing else, said therapist Bradie Hansen, the session will be a chance to allow yourself space and time to think about the relationships you have with the others in your household and how you might be aﬀecting them. The Bowen Theory perspective “gives people access to a sense of agency,” she said. There are things you can do to improve your situation. In these uncertain times, that’s a powerful message. 

THIS ARTICLE WAS COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR BY:

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

Turning a Page

With curbside pickup now allowed, Vermont libraries sort out their next steps S TO RY & PHOT O BY MARGARET GRAYSON

hen the Platt Memorial Library in Shoreham closed its doors due to the novel coronavirus on March 18, librarian Abby Adams knew she wanted to keep Shoreham’s 1,250 residents stocked up with books. How? By delivering them directly. “Library services were really important to encouraging people to stay home,” Adams said. “If we could bring stuff to people, they would be entertained and educated, and they wouldn’t feel as trapped at home.” Within a week of the library’s physical closure, Adams was taking phone requests from patrons, then loading books and other materials into her car and doing delivery duty around town. She said she felt a little funny at first, dropping packages on people’s porches and scurrying away. But “people are so grateful and so positive,” she said. For Vermont’s larger libraries, some with thousands of patrons, delivery services are too tall an order. Gov. Phil Scott’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order, banning nonessential trips around town, effectively made their physical books inaccessible. That changed on April 24, when the governor’s office permitted libraries to open for curbside pickup. While the Vermont Department of Libraries quickly issued guidelines for such service, decisions about reopening happen at the local level. As a result, library accessibility still varies dramatically from town to town. At the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, the staff was “raring to go,” codirector Carolyn Brennan said. “We were originally aiming for the middle of May, but we were basically champing at the bit.” Brennan worked through the weekend to make sure the librarians were trained and the building was set up for social distancing, both for staff and patrons coming to pick up library materials. “We had to figure out how to set up an outdoor space that was handicap accessible. I had to go up to Dick’s Sporting Goods and buy a tent,” Brennan said. “We had to make sure that we have enough cleaning supplies.” The library reopened for pickup on April 29. In the first two days, Brennan said, the Kellogg-Hubbard lent out 300 books and took in just as many returns. The library saw about 75 patrons a day, a little 42

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

CULTURE less than half of its daily visitation in nonpandemic times. Patrons placed requests online, via email or over the phone, and librarians usually had the materials ready for pickup within 24 hours. “From a staff end, it’s very labor-intensive,” Brennan said. Curbside pickup isn’t feasible for every library, at least not at this stage. Dana Hart, director of the Ilsley Public Library in Middlebury, wrote in an email to Seven Days that she and the library board decided not to offer curbside pickup for now, though she hopes to get that service up and running by June. Hart said she was concerned for her staff’s health and safety. In her view, Ilsley lacks the staffing necessary to disinfect every item that enters the library. Physical space is also a problem. Ilsley covers 14,700 square feet, roughly a third the size of Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library, and Hart wrote that she “was concerned that our physical building could not provide the space necessary for safe social distancing during the ‘pickup’ times … Nor do we

Abby Adams

THE LATEST RESEARCH SUGGESTS

BOOKS PROBABLY DON’T NEED A NINE-DAY QUARANTINE.

have the space required to isolate that many materials for a period long enough to ensure the virus could not be living on the materials.” Disinfection is a major concern for every library. When Adams of Platt Memorial started doing her deliveries in Shoreham, there were no libraryspecific guidelines to tell her how long the virus could live on books. She did her own research, reading scholarly articles about the survival of COVID-19 and other coronaviruses on different surfaces, and concluded that she should keep a book out of circulation for nine days to ensure

that it would be safe for the next user. Or coronavirus-free, anyway. You still don’t want to eat your dinner off the latest James Patterson novel. “Library books are not sanitary items,” Adams said with a laugh. “They’re borrowed by everybody. They’re filthy.” The latest research suggests books probably don’t need a nine-day quarantine, after all. In a training webinar from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, experts said 24 hours would most likely suffice. “For all that [books are] grubby and they change hands a lot, they’re not actually great vectors for contagion of any kind,” Brennan said. At Kellogg-Hubbard, books are quarantined for 72 hours between readers. At the Fletcher Free Library, curbside pickup reopened on May 6. (The library had previously offered pickup services for a few days in March before the stay-at-home order went into effect.) Director Mary Danko said the Fletcher isn’t accepting returns yet, however; all

checked-out materials automatically renew indefinitely. Like many other libraries, the Fletcher Free used the interval of the stay-at-home order to amp up its online offerings and promote its virtual materials, such as ebooks and the movie-streaming service Kanopy. Librarians became de facto tech support for many Burlington residents who are struggling to adapt to the virtual world. Danko said librarians have coached people via online chat and email, and even over the phone. Even as libraries are encouraging patrons to look forward, they’re also reminding them to look backward. In an article on the Kellogg-Hubbard website, codirector Jessie Lynn and librarian Diane Grenkow wrote about two previous occasions when Vermont libraries adapted to a pandemic that temporarily closed their doors. During the flu outbreak of 1918, the Kellogg-Hubbard became a volunteer outpost and temporary nursery for children whose parents were sick or dead. The librarian at the time, Evelyn Lease, summed up the experience in the minutes of a 1919 meeting: “All this goes to prove that the library, like other live institutions, has been called to unaccustomed duties, emphasized new values, and attained a broader horizon as a result.” A year before the 1918 flu, Montpelier faced a polio outbreak that closed the library for a few months. All of the books that had been lent to households infected with polio were burned upon their return to the library. “They knew that it was contagious, but they didn’t have the same understanding of how that works,” Brennan said. She and other local librarians are grateful that, in the 21st century, they don’t have to use such drastic methods to ensure patrons’ safety. In Shoreham, 36 households have signed up so far for book deliveries from Platt Memorial. “We’re not a large library,” librarian Adams said. “It is one of the advantages of having a small operation, that we can do something like this.” She and her patrons are even finding an upside to the situation. “We’re getting a lot of people who want us to pick out books for them, and that’s really exciting,” Adams said. “That part of it is kind of fun. I’ve gotten some feedback from families that it feels sort of like having a personal librarian.” m Contact: margaret@sevendaysvt.com

When Life Was Simpler...

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INFO Learn more at plattlib.org, kellogghubbard.org, ilsleypubliclibrary.org and fletcherfree.org. Untitled-21 1

SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

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2V-VtTire051320 1

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Flu Seasoned

A central Vermont centenarian recalls that other global pandemic B Y CH E L SEA ED GAR

CULTURE

COURTESY OF JAMES VALASTRO

n a warm Sunday afternoon in early May, I found myself shouting at a 109-year-old woman from a folding chair on her lawn in Waterbury Center. To sum up the experience in the manner of a haiku: Social distancing / loud, erratic gusts of wind / quite hard of hearing. But Florilla Ames, seated like a queen in a wooden chair on her porch, wearing a cornflower blue sweater and the kind of pants that would correctly be called slacks, didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. When your frame of reference encompasses 19 presidents, one Great Depression, two World Wars and two global pandemics, it probably takes more than a bellowing journalist with a thimbleful of life experience to get under your skin. For the past 50 years, Ames has lived in the shingled house on Barnes Hill Road where, more than a century ago, she and her family weathered the 1918 influenza outbreak. She was 6 years old when her parents bought the land, a 138-acre parcel overlooking Mount Mansfield to the northwest. When Ames was growing up, the property was a working farm, with 40 dairy cows, chickens, geese and the occasional pig. “Back then, you didn’t go to a grocery store,” she said, her dandelion-fuzzcolored hair blowing across her glasses. “You got what you needed out of the ground, or from your own constitution.” Ames, the second of three children, was born on March 17, 1911, to Ida and Arthur Perkins, in Arthur’s mother’s house in Montpelier. Not long after the family moved to Waterbury Center, in the fall of 1918, the influenza pandemic arrived in Vermont. On October 4, state health officials ordered the closure of schools and banned all public gatherings. By then, the flu was already ravaging entire communities; rural telephone lines went silent, their operators incapacitated by illness. Barre, one of the hardest-hit towns in the state, reported 2,000 cases at the end of the first week of October; St. Johnsbury recorded nearly 850, according to Vermont historian and writer Mark Bushnell. Ames believes that her older brother, Ernest, then age 11, brought the virus back with him after visiting their grandmother in Montpelier, where more than 500 people had come down with the flu. The whole family fell ill in quick

Florilla Ames

succession. Ames and her 4-year-old know what it was, but she thought the brother, George, suffered a mild bout color was beautiful. and rebounded within a week; their Ames doesn’t recall being afraid — at parents, stricken in unison, were slower 7, she said, she wasn’t quite old enough to to recover. grasp the situation. But she does rememOne of the idiosyncrasies of the 1918 ber fetching things and dusting at the pandemic, still not fully understood by behest of her mother, who, as Ames put epidemiologists, was its deadly impact on it, “ran the house from flat in bed.” In the young adults: Accordmidst of a pandemic ing to the Centers for that had shut down the Disease Control and world, there was still Prevention, mortality no respite from dustrates peaked among ing — though, Ames people between the confessed, she never ages of 20 and 40. saw much point until Hundreds of thoushe could write her name in it. sands of children lost one or both of their While her parents F L O R IL L A AME S parents; in New York were confined to their City alone, some 31,000 room, a man who lived children were orphaned in just two and a down the road came to their house every half months. day to take care of the farm chores, feed Even now, said Ames, she can picture the woodstove, and look after Ames and her sick mother and father, lying in bed. her brothers. As Ames recalls, his last A doctor from Waterbury came to their name was Houston — she can’t remember house and brought medicine bottles filled his first name — but she can summon a with a dark emerald liquid; she didn’t vivid image of him warming his feet in the

I’M TERRIBLY SORRY THAT WE WEREN’T MORE READY FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

WE FORGOT, I GUESS.

oven after working outside. Miraculously, she said, he never caught the flu. Under Houston’s watch, her diet consisted exclusively of her mother’s canned tomatoes on toast: “With a man and no grocery store, that was about all we could get,” she said. Spartan foodstuffs notwithstanding, Ames believes that Houston’s help — and the vitamins in the canned tomatoes — pulled her family through the pandemic. Scores of others weren’t so lucky: In one of the neighboring houses, said Ames, a mother, father and child all died within days of each other. By the end of 1918, the State Board of Health had registered 43,735 cases and 1,772 deaths. From Ames’ point of view, the human response to the threat of a new pathogen hasn’t changed much over the last century: “Like last time, people are either doing what they can to help, or to help themselves, and other people are just not paying any attention to it. And that’s what scares me,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry that we weren’t more ready for something like this. We forgot, I guess.” Of course, very few among us have such long memories. Ames has outlived her brothers by more than half a century; both died young of heart attacks. For 70 years, she was married to Darrel Ames, who died in 2008. The couple met at an ice skating rink in Derby Line, where Florilla worked as a teacher. They married in 1938 and moved to Springfield, Mass., for Darrel’s job with the Eastern States Farmers Exchange, which later became Agway. When Darrel retired in 1976, the two returned to Florilla’s childhood home. They rode snowmobiles together well into their nineties. These days, Ames keeps a simple routine. She wakes up at about 8 a.m. in her second-floor bedroom, where she sleeps “against everyone’s advice to come down.” (“I’ll come down when I’m ready,” she explained.) She listens to audiobooks and her local radio station, WDEV, on very high volume. Her live-in home health aide, who has been with her since December, takes her vitals. “I’d been in the hospital quite a bit since last July, but I’ve been trying to get better ever since then,” said Ames. “I was beginning to get discouraged, at 109.” She flashed the teensiest of smirks. “But now, I think, I’m finally accomplishing it.” m Contact: chelsea@sevendaysvt.com SEVEN DAYS MAY 13-20, 2020

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