Matt Dickerson: Canoeing provides outdoor rewards

My wife, Deborah, likes to angle for beavers. No, not in the same way that I angle for trout. She doesn’t try to catch them. She definitely would not want to hook them, or net them, or get them to try to eat something that looks like food but isn’t. But when we go out on the water paddling together, seeing a beaver or two is for her a sort of extra reward. This is also true for her of turtles, or osprey, or blue heron, or really any wildlife. But especially beavers. I recently did a radio interview on my ne … (read more)

WEST HAVEN — In dirt track auto racing on July 3, New York driver Kenny Tremont Jr. added to his already impressive win total, and Ripton racer Chris Sumner also picked up a victory at Devil’s Bowl Speedway. Tremont is the leader in all-time victories and … (read more)

ADDISON COUNTY — Eighteen members of the Otter Valley, Vergennes, Middlebury and Mount Abraham union high school baseball teams received postseason honors from the Lake Division or the Marble Valley League B Division. From VUHS, Jeffrey Stearns was named … (read more)

WEST HAVEN — New York driver Kenny Tremont Jr. did it again on Sunday, winning for the second time in five days and for the fourth straight time at Devil’s Bowl Speedway. Leicester racer Adam Piper also picked up his first victory of the summer that eveni … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — Visiting Burlington Tennis Club on Tuesday topped the Middlebury Marlins, 248-202, in a competitive Champlain Valley Swim League Meet. The Marlins came up short despite two victories apiece from Mitzi Poduschnick, Aurora Foley, Sadie Chance, … (read more)

ST. ALBANS — The Vergennes Swim Team edged host St. Albans on Tuesday, 244-226, in a Champlain Valley Swim League meet as the Champs evened their record at 2-2. Will Clark won another three of his races for Vergennes, and Annika Smits, Adrienne Smits, Con … (read more)

MIDDLEBURY — The Addison County American Legion baseball team rallied to salvage the last of three weekend games vs. Franklin County, but then dropped a road contest at S.D. Ireland on Tuesday. With that, AC’s record fell to 5-11 in Northern Division play … (read more)

In 1976 during the Republican Convention, the late President Gerald Ford said, and I paraphrase, “ Everyone keeps talking about being an immigrant. The only non-immigrants are the Native American Indians.” It was indeed refreshing to hear someone of the s … (read more)

A little over a week ago around the time the Addison Independent was being printed on July 4, several good citizens of the town had to go down to the railroad tracks to retrieve the flower boxes that were thrown from the pedestrian bridge running from the … (read more)

The evisceration of the Park Diner by its conversion from the heart of working-class Middlebury to a tableau beside which the town’s elite can sip wine and eat from a prohibitively expensive out-of-town French restaurant ‘food truck’ while taking selfies … (read more)

Thank you to the selectmen of the town of New Haven. Congratulations on Dog Team Road’s paving. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Tony Neri New Haven

Editor’s note: This is the 25th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. On July 4, 1826 — 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence — at 6:30 in the evening, John Adams died. His last words … (read more)

The identity of President Trump’s Democratic challenger will not be known until next spring. While the large field of Democrats contests primaries and caucuses with each other, the president is actively and always campaigning for re-election. Trump will b … (read more)

I remember how, for so many years, I was desperate to “do something” on the 4th of July, mainly to escape from New York City, where the ever-putrescent smell of summer in the city rises from baking black asphalt, the heat and smell shimmering together in … (read more)

US women’s soccer captain Megan Rapinoe has boldly seized the nation’s attention with the team’s second World Cup victory to challenge the establishment and status quo. First and foremost she has been a leading champion of equal pay for women in sports, a … (read more)