With summer weather at its height and many people with more time on their hands out on the roads 50 years ago this week, Addison County saw a substantial number of car crashes. In just one week, eight crashes in Addison, Ferrisburgh, Middlebury, New Haven, Vergennes, and even on the Champlain Bridge left nine people with mild injuries. 
Here are some of the top stories that appeared in the July 30, 1970, edition of the Independent:
•  The county suffered a heat wave with high humidity and temperatures in the 90s for over five days, forcing thousands of residents to seek out lakes, ponds, pools and other swimming spots and sleep “on rooftops, cellars, and backyards” in an attempt to keep cool. The heat wave and lack of rain also endangered farmers’ corn crop, and the Bristol town water system was even in danger of drying up. 
•  Groundbreaking ceremonies for a new vocational center, today the Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center in Middlebury, were scheduled for Aug. 5. 
•  Albert Ring Sing Chin, 19, a tourist from New York, drowned tragically while swimming with friends at Branbury State Park in Salisbury. 
•  Biographies of notable historical figures such as Samuel de Champlain and books by Agatha Christie and Pearl S. Buck were among the new books added to the collection of the Platt Memorial Library in Shoreham. 
•  Irma Luck, a 26-year-old International Farm Youth Exchange student from West Germany staying with the Morrison family in Leicester, shared her observations on the cultural differences between rural Vermont and her own small farming town. “Here, your neighbors are spread far apart. My father’s farm is in a village and his neighbor is across the street.” Luck also noticed that while it was acceptable in the U.S., in Germany it would be taboo for women to be seen shopping “in shorts or pants and their hair in curlers.” She said her favorite food so far on her trip was Vermont maple syrup.
— Emma Pope McCright