It was just one more challenge when the January night of the awards ceremony threatened a dismayingly snowy drive. But – as the award bears witness – overcoming challenges is a specialty of Opera North, the Upper Valley’s esteemed homegrown opera company. Three intrepid representatives of the company set forth for Concord to receive the New Hampshire Theatre Alliance’s Matty Gregg Award for Vision and Tenacity.

“I think of it as New Hampshire’s equivalent of the Tony awards,” says Opera North’s Director of Development, Maria Laskaris. Opera North (ON) was being honored for its collaboration with the National Park Service (NPS) which resulted in last summer’s Singers and Swingers, a surprising blend of opera music and circus performance at the NPS site, Blow-Me-Down Farm. The property, with its beautiful views of water and mountains, has historic links to the nearby Augustus Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site.

Told of the proposed blend of different arts, some people thought, “Circus and opera – weird,” and stayed home. Open-minded folks thought, “Circus and opera – weird – let’s go find out what they’re up to.” This adventurous crowd was richly rewarded. The unique blend of circus arts and opera music bent audience brains in a pleasing way, opening people to connections they had not felt before. “You think, come on – circus and opera?” says Jim Adler of Quechee, who has been attending ON shows with his wife, Brooke, for over 20 years. “Then you have the excitement of seeing people pull off a major risk” as they display newly combined art forms.

It was the partnership with the National Park Service that tipped the scales for ON to win the Tenacity award, says Maria. The NPS has been on the lookout for an arts organization that would work with them to create a national park for the arts, and ON is poised to be that partner. While the prospect of working with a government body might give pause, ON sees a wide-open field of possibilities. They’re prepared to accept NPS restrictions such as not changing the exterior of the site’s historic buildings. “We’re experimenting with different things,” says Maria. “Some things will go better in a traditional environment [like Lebanon Opera House], “but we’re trying new venues, and looking for new audiences.” Like many arts groups, ON presenters see their audience aging, and work to engage new fans. Exposing circus aficionados to opera music fits their bill precisely.

Lebanon’s Sally Rutter is an ON board member, and she’s delighted with the successes that General Director Evans Haile has pulled off already, and with his larger aims. “Evans just dreamed up this whole concept,” she says. “He has a vision of the Upper Valley being a center of the arts, people coming here from other areas, like Tanglewood or Aspen. Maria Laskaris has done phenomenal work getting grants from all over. And of course, Louis [founding conductor and Maria’s husband] is a legend! They’re a compellingly terrific trio.”

ON board member Sally Rutter

ON has definitely embraced the vision thing. “When we first heard about the venture at Blow-Me-Down Farm,” says Jim Adler, “the singers and swingers idea seemed unlikely.” But the wonderful views and the lovely property put the couple in a hopeful mood. What they saw, Jim says, “was truly innovative. The intimate staging was thrilling, and somehow operatic music went well with circus acts. They really pulled it off wonderfully well. If they’re able to fulfill their dreams for Blow-Me-Down Farm, it will be an outstanding place.”

Next summer, July 12-14 will see five shows of Hoedown at Blow-Me-Down with circus performers and American music by Aaron Copland, George Gershwin, and Richard Rodgers.

Community Access TV is “a conduit that fosters community connectedness,” says executive director Donna Girot. From its home in White River Junction’s TipTop building, “Its mission is to let all people find a voice. We provide training and equipment to all, for free. When there’s a problem in the community, we help solve it by helping people explain their ideas and points of view.” Donna has been at CATV for about a year. “The job seemed compelling,” she says, “because there are lots of challenges,” including that it’s the only (she thinks) community access station that contractually supports towns in two states.

CATV routinely records and posts the selectboard and school board meetings of the five towns it serves: Hartford, Hartland, Norwich, Lebanon, and Hanover. This task is more complicated than sticking a camera on a tripod and going out for coffee until the meeting is done. Videographers use multiple cameras so they can cover speakers from the audience as well as board members. After the meeting, the recording is put through a digital compression process to make it more compact. CATV uploads the recording to the internet as quickly as possible, knowing that minute-takers and reporters use them to check facts. “The videos provide a record of who said what when,” says Donna. CATV makes available selectboard and school board meetings, concerts and other informational and entertainment programming. More and more people expect to find their information on screens; CATV translates events to a screen medium, making further screen uses possible.

CATV provides technology for today’s world. Quechee’s Gesine Prado, self-taught baker of elaborate cakes and other goodies, has used CATV’s studios to perfect voiceovers for her “Baked in Vermont” show. “CATV is an invaluable community resource,” she says enthusiastically. “Donna, Chico, and the entire CATV team are helpful, friendly, and foster an unfettered creative environment.” Anyone who’s seen one of her elaborate, impressive cakes knows that she’s an expert on unfettered creativity!

CATV teaches. They give away training and air time to anyone who asks–for free. Many people end up making little or no use of the training, but some people catch the bug and produce shows about local events, history, entertainment, and issues relevant to the Upper Valley community.

Media Explorers class: Bona Bones, a professional stop-motion
animator and artist, teaches about creating stop-action video

CATV builds an independent filmmaking community. It trains videographers with classes and summer camps for middle schoolers and up. Graduates of camps become counselors for new participants. Filmmakers enter the film competitions or “slams” that CATV runs twice a year, open to middle schoolers, high schoolers, and adults. These are competitions to produce a short video within a time limit. The slams typically require the use of a certain prop or phrase. CATV provides free one-on-one training to shore up audio and video production skills, and lends equipment. The slams reward creativity, technical skills, and working well with a team. Seeing other teams’ films at the end of the slam can be humbling, but is always inspiring and broadening. CATV also offers high school internships and a club that introduces media professions to middle and high school girls.

Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘til It’s Gone?

The business model of this remarkable organization is unusual – and endangered. For years public access TV has been supported by fees that cable companies have paid for using the ‘public good’ of the cable network. But as more and more users ‘cut the cord’ of cable service, CATV is seeing its supply stream start to suffer a drought.

Comcast pays a franchise fee to Lebanon. The city passes this fee on to CATV, with the result that there is now new equipment installed in the city meeting rooms. Better equipment means easier viewing for those who want to stay up-to-date on city affairs.

Donna is highly resistant to charging users for the classes and equipment CATV provides, seeing such fees as barriers to parts of the community. “People take us for granted,” says Donna, but it’s important because filming local government meetings compels ethical government. It’s the bedrock of free speech.”

There are 25 local access TV stations in Vermont. They pay into a network and share their best and most general interest shows.

One Producer Says It All

Lebanon resident Barbara Krinitz has worked for many years, in many ways, for CATV. Here’s her story, which epitomizes how CATV weaves community.

“I moved up to the Upper Valley 7 years ago. One day, I was walking through the TipTop Building and passed CATV. They had a sign outside saying that if you had an idea for a TV show, CATV would help you produce it. I walked in, said I didn’t have an idea for a TV show, but would like to learn how to use the equipment and maybe I could help someone else. They did indeed teach me how to use their camera and editing equipment, and then told me to look in the Valley News calendar, find something that interested me, and go out and film it. I chose ‘Machine Madness’ at the Montshire Museum, which became the first program I filmed and edited for CATV.

“So that’s how I became a volunteer producer. Since then, I have produced many programs for CATV. I have my own music program and my own local history program, and I also film some community events. I feel that CATV has brought me closer to the community in which I live, and brought the community closer to me.”

Many people don’t know there are good jobs in manufacturing, right here, says Chris Hamilton of Fuji Dimatix, which invents and produces commercial-quality inkjet printheads. Kids can buck the trend that says they have to leave the Upper Valley to find a good job after high school. Next fall, a pilot program bearing the impressive name STEM Internship: High Tech Manufacturing and Engineering, will link 16 Lebanon High School seniors and some students from Thetford Academy with Hypertherm and Fuji in a semester-long internship. “The program covers the entire business,” explains Tim Renner, a team leader at Hypertherm’s tech training institute. “Students will learn about manufacturing and engineering, and also accounting, marketing, and human resources.” Hypertherm asserts it creates “cutting and gouging solutions that can make anything possible.” Aside from being useful, the process sounds like fun.

Students will spend the afternoons of their fall semester rotating through various areas in the two companies. The program is plenty of work; students will earn math, science and elective credit. “STEM is a real interest of mine,” says SAU88 Superintendent Joanne Roberts. “I’ve been working on this, really, since I started here, almost four years ago.” As the links with Fuji and Hypertherm developed, curriculum experts worked to outline the subject matter students would be responsible for, and the assessment tests they would have to pass.

Students from Lebanon High School & Thetford Academy tour Hypertherm’s assembly operations at their Heater Road facility

“It was an intensive 18-month process,” says Lebanon HS curriculum director Bonnie Robinson. In addition to broad educational goals, program developers also covered details like bus schedules. They created a student handbook outlining unexpected rules such as “No open-toed shoes on the shop floor.” There were plenty of variables to juggle, Robinson points out, since there are two companies, two schools, and even two states (with more than two different regulations!)

There are various other job-shadowing, or vacation-week mini-programs in the district, but “this program is unique, really, in the entire state,” says Superintendent Roberts. Robinson adds, “It’s longer – a whole semester – and it’s a class, for credit.”

The selection process was extensive. After a presentation to the entire Lebanon junior class, about 40 interested students went on a field trip to the company sites, and filled out an application. “We were looking for a range of abilities, in math and other areas,” says Robinson. Variety of perspective and experience gives the greatest opportunity to develop and hone ideas, and the students will often be working as a team.

Chris Hamilton, now working in production at Fuji, worked for Hypertherm for five years after high school. Then he took a break to follow his dream of teaching, spending a year in France and two in Colombia. He looks forward to combining his skills in the factory and the classroom. “We’ll be showing the kids about jobs, yes, but our real motivation is to help out in the community,” he says. The excitement is palpable in his voice when he talks of the growth spurt Fuji is undergoing. (The company has about 750 employees.) “And,” he adds, “we’re going to show the kids how innovation works.”

Matt McKenney (Workforce Development Manager at
Hypertherm) explains Hypertherm’s robotic production
cells to students from Lebanon High School and Thetford
Academy.

A Lebanon Local Supports Families Through Adoption

They call it the Triad Group, and think of a three-legged stool. The evolving group consists of about a dozen people, all with some connection to one of the three facets of adoption, whether as birth parent, adoptive parent, or adoptee. Co-founder Judith Bush says support groups usually aim at one, or possibly two, of these facets. “I’ve always wanted a triad group, but I bet you could look and not find one in the whole country,” she says. Titia Ellis of South Pomfret was also enthusiastic about connecting the triad, and helped found the group. “I facilitate the group, but I’m not there as a leader,” says Judith, who is widely respected as an adoption counselor. “For me, this is volunteer work. It’s a joy to see what people learn from one another.”

Judith Bush (r) and her daughter Kathy

Judith grew up in Brookline, MA, with two older brothers. She moved to the Upper Valley in 1968, when her then-spouse got a job here. Judith was one of the organizers of Hartland’s Cobb Hill co-housing community. She has three grown children, the youngest  being her adopted daughter, Kathy. “People aren’t adopting to save the world. It’s selfish,” she says. “I wanted another child, and I wanted to raise a daughter.” Kathy joined the family at a week old.

About two years ago Judith moved to Lebanon where she’d worked for a number of years with Headstart Follow Through, providing services for K–3 students, and with Casey Family Services. She developed a strong interest in “complex families,” where people are combined through adoption or fostering. Removal from a living parent creates issues different from those faced by blended families.

Triad group members welcome her passion for the issue. “To have a place to go where there’s a truthful conversation is wonderful,” says Jennie Anderson, priest of Norwich’s Episcopal church, who relinquished a child when she was in high school. T—, who with her husband is working through a three-year-long process to adopt children from Haiti, enjoys the group as a way to prepare. She has sparked discussion with the question ‘What would you do differently?’

Hoyt Bingham of South Royalton also finds “It’s a great group, now pretty much new [since she joined], which keeps the conversation fresh. People are mindful of taking time, and Judith is great at orchestrating, making sure others have time to talk.” Hoyt always knew she was adopted, but it was in the days of closed adoption (1930s to mid-1970s), when records were sealed to prevent adoptees from finding their birth parents.

Hoyt grew up moving often. “It was back and forth between Connecticut and Vermont,” she recalls, “sometimes to the same school but a different grade. I feel I didn’t really get an education.” But then she went to Katharine Gibbs secretarial school – “one of the best choices in my life”—and developed a fruitful career. Her parents were always open about her adoption, but, she says, “The connection to my parents was different. Not better, not worse, just different. There’s an umbilical cord connection that I have with my children; I don’t feel like that with my adoptive parents.”

Jennie Anderson with her grandson

Now 56, Hoyt began searching for her birth mother almost 20 years ago, being curious about medical information. And, she says, “I wanted to know if I looked like anyone.” In four months, an unusually short time, she found her birth mother, who was delighted. Hoyt has since become close with that whole branch of her family. “I could feel that my energy was the same as [my birth mother’s],” she says. “I just knew we were related.”

Finding someone who looked like her also motivated Titia Ellis, now 83, to look for her birth mother. Her adoptive parents told her (and her adoptive sister) they were adopted, but they said this was a secret and should never be discussed. Titia grew up with intense fears of not being good enough to be loved, afraid those close to her would abandon her if she caused problems or stood up for herself. Her search for her birth mother was emotionally draining, full of practical difficulties, and tragically timed: she found her birth mother shortly after the mother succumbed to senility. Titia did, however, connect with uncles and half-sisters, and has been warmly accepted. She tells the poignant story in her book The Search.

* * * * *

For many years, there was little in the way of post-adoption support. “People thought, ‘Get the kids adopted and then it’s fine,’” says Judith. “This group is about the long game of adoption. Adoption is a whole layer on top of the wonderful challenge of parenting.” Judith has shepherded her own child through this way of growing up. Research shows, she says, that acknowledging differences without either insisting or rejecting them yields the best outcome for children. “You’re trying to make a child feel special without making a child feel weird,” she explains. When adoptive parents tell the truth, there’s a gradual learning, rather than a moment of revelation. The child’s age and level of curiosity drive the process. Ideally, adopters can be secure enough as parents to welcome differences calmly.

Terry Cioffredi is rearing two adoptive children. She found the group about a year ago. “People dip in and out,” she says. “When things are not going so smoothly I think ‘Gee, I sure could use an evening with Judith Bush.’ Her name is one people trust on adoption issues.” Terry agrees people support you as you adopt. “But as kids get older, adoption issues are not in the forefront any more,” she explains. “When adoption issues [with her teenagers] exploded a bit, I was surprised. For adopted kids, the issue always is ‘How can they be lovable if their own mother gave them away?’ Each transition brings this up again.”

Regarding interracial adoption, Terry notes, “Every person [at the group] will say we truly did not care what color skin our kids have – but our kids do. A word I learned this year is ‘whitewashed,’ about kids of color growing up in middle class white families.” These children don’t have the daily experiences of their racial group: No matter how much social and cultural mentoring their parents arrange for them, the children go home to their white family. It’s hard to see a solution to this issue, though kids have suggested moving to a more racially diverse community.

Titia and her sister

Such anecdotes are doubtless hard to hear for those contemplating transracial adoption, like T—. She emphasizes that diversity is a strength, and that not all families are formed biologically. And she knows that facing possible problems is better than flying blindly.

Jennie Anderson was a high school student when she gave up her son. She was well-supported by Catholic Charities (even though she’s an Episcopalian), and very clear about releasing her child for adoption. But about 10 years later, around the time of his birthday, she found herself crying hysterically in the shower and wondering why. “I would get clumsy at work,” she says, “which was a problem because I was working in construction at the time.” She sought for and found her son; his residence in Vermont is one reason she moved to the state.

Jennie has a sign in her kitchen that says, “Birth mothers never forget. Never forget birth mothers.” She’s pleased that open adoptions are now the norm. “They’re much healthier for all concerned,” she says. “Anywhere there’s a secret, there’s a power dynamic. So I’m very open about my birth mother role and how that formed me.”

The Triad Group’s influence may spread. Chris and David spent two years in Lebanon with their son, adopted from foster care. “We’d never had a group we could really learn from. And there was immediate acceptance.” The couple is full of praise for the schools and community they found in Lebanon, but moved back to Rhode Island to be closer to their grown daughters and their son’s birth siblings.

“We were very blessed to find the group,” says Chris. “The interaction with the adult adoptees gave us insight and much needed hope for our son’s future. Maybe we can use this article to discuss expanding our current group.”

***********

The Adoption Triad Conversation Group meets second Tuesdays at the Ottauquechee Foundation in Woodstock, VT. 7-9 pm. New members are always welcome in this informal, confidential group setting. For more information, contact jbush@together.net 

People look up to Steve Gordon, and not just because of his commanding height. He has turned part of his second career – massage – into a service for cancer patients, the Hand to Heart project, which sends massage therapists on home visits to cancer patients. Though more acquainted with dying than most people, he radiates a serene calm that perhaps grows from spending so much time thinking about and dealing with death and our journey to it.

“All I ask is that you not be afraid,” the woman from his massage class said to Steve, as they discussed practicing on each other. He was taken aback; it had not entered his mind to be afraid of someone with life-threatening illness like the recurrence of aggressive breast cancer she had discovered as the class began. But cancer patients were often told, “I can’t give you a massage – you have cancer.” Schools taught that the stimulation of massage might encourage cancer cells to detach and relocate. “It’s using science to show 2 + 2 = 9,” exclaims Steve.

An Early Seed

Those who have read the Valley News for years may recognize Steve’s name. Over 25 years, he was a reporter and editor of the Sunday edition. His experiences of massage, as an occasional practice subject for college friends from the nursing school at Keene State in the ’70s, lived in his memory and eventually took him from the paper.

Around the turn of the millennium Steve began a course in massage at [then] New Hampshire Technical College in Claremont while he was still working full time at the Valley News. “I’d leave the newsroom and drive a half hour,” for a 5-hour course and practice, he recalls. “It was like getting on a rocket ship to another planet.”

The formal training was just the beginning. “It’s like everything else: it’s not like you really know it when you graduate college,” Steve says. “After graduation you begin relearning and rebuilding what you know.” He hadn’t begun the training with the intent of going into oncology massage, but experiences led him to more and more involvement with it.

Steve spent some of his internship time at DHMC, supervised by Briane Pinkson, coordinator of healing arts. “The only place in the hospital we don’t go is the emergency room, and the operating room,” she says. She supervises a team of four part-time massage therapists who, for example, give short foot massages to people receiving chemotherapy infusions. The massage and the feeling of being cared for and about can lower the patient’s level of tension.

Taking It on the Road

In addition to his massage practice, Steve was giving massages at DHMC’s cancer center once a week, a service that was then paid for as treatment, since its benefits of pain relief and physical and emotional relaxation were well known. Nurses reported that patients slept better and needed less pain medication. Steve began to think of the patients who were not in the hospital, released to home awaiting another round of treatment, or hospice care. Many couldn’t afford to have a massage therapist come to them. The idea of Hand to Heart was born.

With advice from his friend Leo McKenna, an expert businessman with strong Dartmouth ties, Steve founded Hand to Heart in 2007. The small nonprofit provides a stipend to a handful of massage therapists who visit patients at home. It can be a strenuous task, since it often means carrying a portable yet heavy massage table into clients’ houses. “The whole idea is to work with a range of people,” says Steve. “It’s not a type of hospice, something just for people with terminal disease.” Most referrals come from DHMC, visiting nurse and hospice agencies, friends, or churches. Patients must live within a certain area and have “beyond minimal” cancer. So recovery can mean loss of the massage service.

Though the number can change suddenly, Steve is currently working with about 15 clients. He is the principle therapist with Hand to Heart, now in its tenth year, with Briane being the other primary massage provider.

Relatives of clients experience the release massage brings to their family. A client’s sister said, “The massage therapist… is encouraging, enabling and healing. He has the gift of understanding and contemplating the scary process of dying. He does not judge, criticize or promise.” Briane agrees wholeheartedly, and notes that home visits bring a richer connection for the therapist also. “Family members really appreciate it – they’re so stressed, grieving – they don’t have the psychic energy themselves. The body relaxes… It’s really intimate, kind of sacred. Especially at the end of life, it’s more about soothing, calming. Like laying on of hands.”

It’s just like Ben and Jerry’s! exclaimed a cellist at the Upper Valley Music Center, “starting in an old garage.” The musician was looking at Roy’s Garage, diagonally across Colburn Park from the Music Center’s new home. The garage is soon to be the home of Lucky’s Coffee Garage. Creative dynamo, Deb Shinnlinger, aims to develop a community meeting spot, a home away from home. And you don’t have to be the barista or the baker.

Deb has been working on the idea of opening a coffee shop for over a year. “A series of fortunate conversations put Mike [Davidson, who owns the property] and me together,” she explains. This energetic woman with curly red hair has had experience from many jobs, all pointing towards this opportunity. She has managed food service operations since she was 20, and she owned a deli in Oregon. “I feel like I’ve done more than most for my age” – she’s in her mid-forties – “and I have entrepreneurial blood.” Other factors in her successes are her artistic talents and outgoing nature. Many people know her as ‘the hula hoop lady’ from the Lebanon and Hanover farmers markets.

Being Lucky Helps

Deb also sees lots of good fortune in her life experience – hence the name of the cafe. She ran her deli in Oregon from 1997 until January 2002, but the economic slowdown after 9/11 led to diminishing sales. “Fortunately, I was able to sell the business,” she says. In her earliest planning for her current venture she surveyed almost 600 people, and several forwarded the survey to Mike, telling him “You have to get together with her for this project.”

Mike is a strong believer in mixed-use, walkable downtowns. “Reworking old buildings is very hard,” he admits, after being involved in many such projects, but using old spaces has aesthetic and community benefits. If someone built out to the edge of the garage lot, it would visually cut off the route to the Carter Community Building, a social and athletic center of town. Mike has a fondness for Roy’s since he has bought gas there for 32 years. Lucky’s will contribute to the lifestyle of people who live and work in the area, says Mike. “It will be a place to sit and watch the world go by, like a Hopper painting. It’s why people come together in cities” – that pleasure in watching and chatting with each other.

Homemade Lemonade

Closer to home, good luck – or lemonade from some challenging lemons – ruled when Deb and her husband Dave, a high school woodshop teacher who grew up in Canaan, moved back east. They were living in a 200-year-old farmhouse with Dave’s mother and their two young daughters, planning to use the timbers from the old structure to build a straw-bale house. But when they took down the garage to start the project, they found the timbers were no longer strong enough. Then a storm knocked down a bunch of trees on the property. “Dave bought a sawmill,” recalls Deb, “so we built the frame from our own trees.”

Building a Business

Now Deb, working with Mike, is turning her efforts to shepherding plans through the city’s permitting processes. Remodeling plans occupy her days, and she knows she has to hurry: She’s eyeing mid-June for an opening. “The city of Lebanon has been wonderful to work with so far,” she says.

Deb is teaming up with New Harvest Coffee Roasters in Pawtucket, RI, a wholesaler committed to fair trade and organic beans bought direct from small producers. New Harvest is creating a coffee blend especially for Lucky’s. “We’re all really excited for it to get going,” says Sam from the wholesaler team at New Harvest. “It’s a good place for coffee to branch out in New Hampshire.”

In addition to espresso drinks and drip coffee, Deb aims to provide pastries baked in house to soups made fresh daily and artisanal toast piled high with delectable toppings. She will use locally produced foods as much as possible, starting with King Arthur Flour bread. Clearly a sociable person, she realizes her cafe will be a service, but also a means to a larger end. “I’m really looking forward to providing a premium coffee experience – and connecting with the community!” she exclaims.

This business does not compete directly with the Lebanon Diner or other eateries in town, says Mike. The menu will be different, as will the atmosphere. In fact, having a choice of places to stop actually increases business for all, as the city becomes a destination because of its restaurants, and people develop the habit of eating in town. “This is providing what people demand,” he says. “It just makes sense.”