Ornamental operation
A crane carefully lowered the city Christmas tree into place
By DAVID BROOKS Monitor staff
Cutting your own Christmas tree is a snap. Unless, that is, it weighs 3,100 pounds, is as wide as a lane of traffic, and nature decided to make the whole process more complicated.
“The wind makes it a little trickier,” said Ryan Rambeau, Concord tree supervisor, during Tuesday morning’s removal of a 40-foot Norway spruce from Blossom Hill Cemetery. The tree – actually the top twothirds of a 60-foot tree – was lifted by crane and taken to the Statehouse plaza where it was installed as this year s city Christmas tree, a process that took longer than expected because of the wind.
Concord has long provided these trees for the holidays, including others from the huge Blossom Hill Cemetery. The roots of this spruce were growing into nearby plots and it would have had to be removed at some point anyway.
The process took the entire morning. It required a four-axle mobile crane capable of lifting 100 tons from McGuinness Tree Service, a bucket truck from Concord General Services, and a 40-foot lowbed trailer from F.L. Merrill Construction.
Roger Lawrence, tree maintenance specialist for the city, went up in the bucket
and dropped a weighted measuring tap to find where to cut, 40 feet down from the top. Then he secured a hooked loop attached to the crane’s 150-foot arm, lowered the bucket to roughly 20 feet off the ground and went to work with the chainsaw.
I was going to climb it, but with the wind it was safer to use the truck,” he said.
Mike Buxton of McGuinness Tree Service said regulations require crane work to shut down when the wind hits 30 mph. It never got that breezy on Tuesday but the gusts were strong enough to send dangling lines swinging, slowing the process.
Once cut, the tree was laid down on the trailer and secured, with the 20-foot branches hanging out on each side.
We re trying to tuck everything in, said Ryan Rambeau, the city’s tree supervisor.
Then came the slow drive 1 ½ miles to the Statehouse plaza – not much of a trip, which was fine with Rambeau. “I want short drives, he commented.
The tree was about 17 inches in diameter at the cut, just enough to fit into the 4-foot-deep hole in the plaza created for these trees. Hinged metal wedges secure the trunk in the hole and the tree has four guy wires attached to the plaza arch and poles to provide stability against those pesky winds.
“A lot of stuff would have to go wrong for it to fall,” said Rambeau.
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GEOFF FORESTER photos / Monitor staff
Concord Tree Maintenance Specialist Roger Lawrence (leftin bucket) and Mike Buxton of McGuinnessofTreeService(incrane)getready tocoordinatetocutdownthe
Hospice volunteers and workers deliver care from their hearts
house manager, recognizes how impactful this can be for people. She, like Pacelli, views her role as a calling.
“Your heart serves. I’m just so happy to be part of this,” she said, tears in her eyes.
Rapoza gets to know the patients at the hospice house on an individual level and builds connections with the family and friends who visit.
“We’re just, I don’t want to say an unknown resource, but a gray area for people. We re trying to do more in educating and making people feel comfortable with using us as a resource in the community,” she added.
Overcoming fear, together
‘Hospice’ is a scary word, social worker Jennifer Rydeen acknowledged. She works for the VNA of Manchester and Southern New Hampshire and spends her time connecting patients and families with resources while offering emotional support.
“It’s a very vulnerable piece of life that people are entering, and it’s a part of life that we know nothing about,” she said.
Hospice workers become professionals at guiding people through the process of death, work Rydeen acknowledged is challenging, but also “very rewarding and compassionate.”
“I work with my whole heart every day. I give of myself to people continuously, because it’s probably the hardest part of our life,” she said.
She frequently tells people that she wants her visits to be about more than gloom, fear and sorrow.
“Yes, it is all of that,” Rydeen said. “But there’s some beauty in this too. Our role is to provide that quality of life for you and find the beauty even in the midst of where
we re at. How can we help you do that? How can we come and bring joy into your life when we re here?
Hospice team members hope that their presence alleviates some of the burden of the unknown by anchoring patients in the present and taking each day as it comes. They help patients reconnect with small moments of joy, be it a food they enjoy, a song they want to listen to, or a story they want to tell. For one of Pacelli’s patients, someone she visited for over a year, this joy meant watching The Price is Right together. Now, even after the patient’s death, Pacelli still thinks about him whenever the show comes on. The patients she spends longer stretches of time with become the ones who most linger with her after they’re gone. But every case is different and some affect her more than others.
Sometimes I think about how I am able to do it. The person passes, and I’m OK,” she said. After both her parents’ deaths and in her years volunteering with dozens of patients and their families, she hopes to help others realize that hospice doesn’t have to be scary. The earlier people take advantage of it, the better their quality of life can be, she emphasized.
Especially in this country, we don’t face death,” Pacelli added. “Other countries do death better. We turn from it and make ourselves look younger to look further away from it. We don’t teach about it. We don’t have grandparents dying in our homes. We just don’t talk about it. Hospice helps bridge that gap.” Rachel Wachman can be reached at rwachman@ cmonitor.com.
GEOFF FORESTER/ Monitor staff
Yvette Lascelle talks with Granite VNA Hospice House manager Suzanne Rapoza on Tuesday. Atthe endofOctober, ontheday ofher
movedfromConcord Hospital to the hospice house, with family visiting every day.
GEOFF FORESTER/ Monitor staff
Jan Claggett(left), spiritual carecounselor atthe hospice house, andGranite VNA Hospice Housemanager Suzanne Rapoza talk in the spiritual room at the hospice house.
GEOFF FORESTER/ Monitor staff Hospice volunteerMaria Pacelli atthe GraniteVNA Hospice House on Wednesday.
By CHARLOTTE MATHERLY Monitor staff
As a retired Marine Corps troop commander,Loudon StateRep. MikeMoffetthas seen veterans runinto trouble with the law – something he arguesis oftendirectly related to their military service.
That’s why he sponsored a billin theLegislaturethis year toestablish a veterans court” thatwill allowjudges to prioritizecare andrecovery for veterans who ve been convictedof acrime,rather than imprisonment.
Someof theissuesthat veteranshave, especiallyif they’vebeen inharm’s way, contribute to their troubles when they’re back in a civilian venue,” said Moffett,who served 28years withthe Marines. “If someone is impactedphysically oremotionally due totheir service to their country, wewant to fac-
Court program to help veterans
tor that inwhen sentencing them for certain crimes.”
By “troubles,” Moffett said, he’s referringto substance abuse disordersand other struggles associatedwith post-traumatic stressdisorder.According tothe U.S.Departmentof VeteransAffairs, more than half of veterans who ve come into contact with thecriminal justicesystem have mentalhealth problems or substanceabuse disorders. As of 2022, about 88,300 veterans livedin NewHampshire.Currently, theDepartmentof Correctionshas171 incarcerated individualswho report havingserved inthe military, accordingto spokesperson Jane Graham. Similarto thestate’s drug courts and mental health courts,this oneisn t necessarily a separate “court,” according to Windham Rep. Bob Lynn, theformer chiefjustice of the New Hampshire SupremeCourt, whoco-sponsoredthe bill.Rather,it servesasa distincttrackor docket withinexisting court systems. Gov.Chris Sununu signed the billin August, and
it’ll be implemented starting in July 2025.
Moffett said heand Lynn got theidea whileattending an out-of-statelegislators’ conference and learning how otherstates havehandledit. Morethan 600veteranstreatmentcourts existacrossthe country, as of 2021, according to the NationalCenter for State Courts.
Lynn said the upfront costs will be covered by saving moneyinthe longrun.However, HelenHanks, thecommissioner ofthe state s Department of Corrections, said she doesn’t currently have the staffing to maintainher department’srole inthisprogram.
During herbudget requests for 2026-27on Tuesday shesaid thedepartmenthas seen successfrom drug courts and mental-health
courts reducing the number of people in state prison facilities. Those “specialty courts,” as she calledthem, can overload the parole system. While paroledrelease helpspeople be moresuccessful aftera run-inwith thelaw, shesaid, the veterans court legislation didn’t come withany additional staffing. “We don’t haveadditional probation and parole officers to provide that resource, Hanks said. Veterans whouse this trackarerequired tocheckin withparole officers,submitto drug testing and complete court-ordered treatments. Moffett emphasizedthat this bill doesn’t excuse or change any verdicts butsaid, at judges’ discretion, the state canimposea differentkindof sentencing for veterans convictedof misdemeanorsand
felonies.
It requires counties to establisha veteranscourt, which couldexist intandem withan existingmental health court,and hirea statewide coordinator role, whowill supervisetheprogram at large. Some of New Hampshire’s mentalhealth courtsalready have a veterans track. Warren Perry,the deputyadjutant general forthe stateDepartment ofMilitary Affairsand Veterans Services, said programs like thosedecrease recidivism andkeep people fromreentering thecriminal justice system.
Demand for the veterans’ track willbe low, hesaid, but worthit.He testifiedinsupportof thebillthis springand estimated the program will likely seebetween 28and 40 people each year,with the
highest concentrationsin Hillsborough andRockingham counties. But, he said the realbenefit willbe anoutsizedimpact onthe livesof each individualveteran who uses the track. What we retrying todois make everybody better citizens and helpthem be productive members of their communities, whichis really the mostimportant thing,” Perry said. We don t want to givethem handouts.Wewant togivepeople awaytocontinue to serve.
CharlotteMatherly isthe statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitorand Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly,or sendher an emailat cmatherly@ cmonitor.com.
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New Hampshire Ball Bearing’s Astro Division is located in Laconia, NH—heart of the scenic Lakes Region. Astro is a World-Class 450+ person, climatecontrolled manufacturing facility that produces spherical bearings, rod ends, sub-assemblies and other precision metal parts for the aerospace industry. The duties of this position includes designing, drawing and troubleshooting the setup and operation of all cutting tools, jigs and fixtures used to manufacture the Division’s products. Conceive and carry out projects for improvements in both manufacturing and engineering. A BSME or equivalent is preferred. Minimum requirements are Associate Degree in a related field with 3 to 5 years tool design experience. Must have experience with and be proficient in any type of CAD software. (Solidworks experience preferred).
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