Faith in Vermont: A Midsummer Sampler (With Kids)
“I am so bored. I’m bored to death!” moans my 7-year-old daughter.
We are three weeks into summer vacation. For one of those weeks, she attended a day camp at Lake Dunmore. For two and a half of those weeks, her...
Faith in Vermont: Changing My Mind
It can be humbling to write a bi-weekly newspaper column: Few things more effectively highlight one’s capacity for change – or inconsistency, denial, and flip-flopping. I’m not convinced that this is a bad thing; isn...
Faith in Vermont: The Moms Are All Right
This column will be published immediately following the last day of Addison County’s 2014-15 school year.
But I’m not going to write about the complex bundle of emotions that summer vacation inspires in parents: the relief of no...
Faith in Vermont: Take It Easy
My daughter stepped off of the school bus the other day, handed me her heavy backpack, and – as is her custom – made her way slowly up towards our house by walking on top of the rock wall alongside the driveway. As she neared her...
Faith in Vermont: Lessons from the Garden
The older I get, the more I love gardening.
I have commented previously in this column about my ambivalence towards gardening -- the result of a childhood spent watching my parents slave away each weekend in their garden...
Faith in Vermont: American Girl Dolls and the Decline of Civilization
Grandparents get to do whatever they want -- that's my philosophy.
It wasn't always; like most first-time parents, I tended to be overly controlling when it came to toys, food, and naps. But my children are blessed with four...
Faith in Vermont: Some Gifts of Spring
We are starting to move outward now. The turning point came a few days before Easter, when I looked outside one morning and saw that there was more bare ground than snow visible through the window.
Later that morning, I took my two...
Poem: Raiding the feeders
Raiding the Feeders
The bear I saw was the shadow
of my father passing my room,
locking his briefcase, walking out the door
at dawn. And not this spring country one
who apparently didn’t eat enough berries
and...
Town Hall Theater musical review: The Last Five Years
Seldom does a musical pack such an emotional punch, grabbing you from its heart-wrenching start on the one hand, to the height of joyous love on the other. “The Last Five Years,” now playing at Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater,...
Faith in Vermont: Saying No to Lucky
It's important to learn how to say "No."
I know, I know, you think, rolling your eyes. C'mon, tell me something new.
Here's my best shot at something new: I'd wager that not many people have been...