Sorry, folks, but I can’t help but write about the Olympics.
Mostly, I want to point to various Web resources that will enhance your Olympic experience, since NBC is once again serving up the spliced, manufactured mess it always does.
Try switching the channel to CBC (channel 6, if you have Stowe Cable) to see different sports covered in a thorough fashion.
Also, if you’re upset about what is being covered, the NBC Web site is streaming hours of coverage online and on demand. The other day, I watched men’s weightlifting in its glorious entirety. If you have a Mac, all you need to do is download and install a simple plug-in.
The best place to view results is the official site, as it’s updated most promptly.
The New York Times has done an excellent job covering the Olympics, too. Stories like this one about two elderly Chinese women being sentenced to a year of "re-education" through labor after protesting that they received inadequate compensation for demolition of their homes prior to the Games characterize the good coverage. Check out their blog, Rings, too.
- Marina Knight
8/20/08
7/26/08
I am a nomad, of sorts
By Marina Knight
There is a fragile-looking girl sitting in front of me putting on make-up. She’s wearing a hot pink shirt and she has bleach-blonde hair and for the life of me I can’t figure out why this is necessary behavior in a café.
A loud family of four with visiting in-laws just vacated the table next to me. Their sandwich remnants still linger on the table and people around them glance down as if they’re going to jump off the table and into their latte.
Bob Marley, then some offbeat indie-pop song blares though the speakers and it’s raining hard outside.
This is the scene at Darwin’s café in Cambridge, Mass.
For the past four days, it’s been my office. Sometimes, I snag a seat on the large, yet horribly unsupportive, couch and sometimes I slide into a chair at one of the communal tables. Today, my timing was just right and I am sitting at a small table all my own. This little piece of real estate is a serious score and I have staked out my belongings, iPod, cell phone, small black notebook, pen and iced tea to let people know that I will be here for the afternoon.
The place has its downfalls, grungy bathroom, semi-weak coffee, just a tad-too-loud music, but it has free wi-fi, air conditioning and I think most other people in here are working, too.
This week I have been web commuting. At first I thought I was telecommuting, but it turns out I am not. That term is not only outmoded, I learned, it is too vague. Plus, telecommuting was what people did when the phone was the main means of communication. Now we use the web. It was important to make this distinction at the beginning of the week, and to mete out the varied nuances of working from away early.
The work I have done this week can also be classified as “nomad working.” It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, especially in a new town. I’ve gone through a fair number of possible work places and only a few allow me to get work done.
On day one, I walked down to the Cambridge public library only to discover that it’s closed for total renovation. I was sent to a high school gym, where I sat for a few hours. It was hot out and there was no AC and the kids reading circle was a bit out of control, so that locale was canned.
I tried working at Pete’s Coffee, the coffee being the obvious bonus, it had AC and wi-fi but there was way too much turnover, giving the place a restless feel. I found it hard to concentrate. On reflection it may have been the triple shot of espresso that caused my jittery feeling.
Darwin’s is just right, even when it’s a bit crowded. There is a different vibe to feed off than the normal office vibe. Some people are writing in journals, others are totally tuned out and focused on what looks like heavy research and an older man just behind me is editing photos. One of the coffee baristas just played Dee Jay, dedicating a song to us. Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean was our gift.
If the experience has taught me anything (the ability to block out crying children, working in a semi-chaotic environment and methods of caffeine regulation aside) it is that work is something you do, not something you travel to.
There is a fragile-looking girl sitting in front of me putting on make-up. She’s wearing a hot pink shirt and she has bleach-blonde hair and for the life of me I can’t figure out why this is necessary behavior in a café.
A loud family of four with visiting in-laws just vacated the table next to me. Their sandwich remnants still linger on the table and people around them glance down as if they’re going to jump off the table and into their latte.
Bob Marley, then some offbeat indie-pop song blares though the speakers and it’s raining hard outside.
This is the scene at Darwin’s café in Cambridge, Mass.
For the past four days, it’s been my office. Sometimes, I snag a seat on the large, yet horribly unsupportive, couch and sometimes I slide into a chair at one of the communal tables. Today, my timing was just right and I am sitting at a small table all my own. This little piece of real estate is a serious score and I have staked out my belongings, iPod, cell phone, small black notebook, pen and iced tea to let people know that I will be here for the afternoon.
The place has its downfalls, grungy bathroom, semi-weak coffee, just a tad-too-loud music, but it has free wi-fi, air conditioning and I think most other people in here are working, too.
This week I have been web commuting. At first I thought I was telecommuting, but it turns out I am not. That term is not only outmoded, I learned, it is too vague. Plus, telecommuting was what people did when the phone was the main means of communication. Now we use the web. It was important to make this distinction at the beginning of the week, and to mete out the varied nuances of working from away early.
The work I have done this week can also be classified as “nomad working.” It’s not quite as easy as it sounds, especially in a new town. I’ve gone through a fair number of possible work places and only a few allow me to get work done.
On day one, I walked down to the Cambridge public library only to discover that it’s closed for total renovation. I was sent to a high school gym, where I sat for a few hours. It was hot out and there was no AC and the kids reading circle was a bit out of control, so that locale was canned.
I tried working at Pete’s Coffee, the coffee being the obvious bonus, it had AC and wi-fi but there was way too much turnover, giving the place a restless feel. I found it hard to concentrate. On reflection it may have been the triple shot of espresso that caused my jittery feeling.
Darwin’s is just right, even when it’s a bit crowded. There is a different vibe to feed off than the normal office vibe. Some people are writing in journals, others are totally tuned out and focused on what looks like heavy research and an older man just behind me is editing photos. One of the coffee baristas just played Dee Jay, dedicating a song to us. Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean was our gift.
If the experience has taught me anything (the ability to block out crying children, working in a semi-chaotic environment and methods of caffeine regulation aside) it is that work is something you do, not something you travel to.
7/17/08
Vacation season
BY TOM KEARNEY
This is the best of times; this is the worst of times.
It’s vacation season.
People come, people go; people are a little preoccupied at work because they’re thinking about sipping a pina colada on the beach.
Everybody does everyone else’s job while they’re gone, only not as well; a former reporter winds up baby-sitting the computer servers; novices shoot news photos and we all hope for the best.
At a small operation like ours, where every job is vital, vacations have to be finessed. Optimally, people would work all the time. But in reality, without vacations, the people on our staff would burn out like dollar-store candles.
With them, those folks come back energized, full of energy and ideas — which they pitch to the poor souls who’ve been filling in and are worn out and dreaming of their own vacation time.
As for my own time off, I separate things into vacations and family trips.
Vacations are when you kick back, relax, sip tall, cool drinks, maybe smoke a cigar, and dip your toes into cool water while you read a trashy novel.
Family trips are when you’re loaded up like a pack horse, carrying a backpack jammed with sunscreen, water, raincoats, hats, insect repellent, bug-bite antidote, and whatever else fits in there.
You lug this burden behind cavorting children at, say, an amusement park where all the rides give you vertigo, or retail stores where the beaded shirts and distressed minskirts have no place in your closet, or on a beach road where your load expands to include a blanket, towels and beach chairs.
Don’t get me wrong; I love family trips. Family trips bring anticipation during the drive, knowing you’ll wind up someplace exciting. Family trips mean great conversations, songs and laughter. Family trips bring the satisfaction that you’re showing the youngsters things they’d never experience otherwise.
Family trips are the best.
Just don’t call them vacations.
This is the best of times; this is the worst of times.
It’s vacation season.
People come, people go; people are a little preoccupied at work because they’re thinking about sipping a pina colada on the beach.
Everybody does everyone else’s job while they’re gone, only not as well; a former reporter winds up baby-sitting the computer servers; novices shoot news photos and we all hope for the best.
At a small operation like ours, where every job is vital, vacations have to be finessed. Optimally, people would work all the time. But in reality, without vacations, the people on our staff would burn out like dollar-store candles.
With them, those folks come back energized, full of energy and ideas — which they pitch to the poor souls who’ve been filling in and are worn out and dreaming of their own vacation time.
As for my own time off, I separate things into vacations and family trips.
Vacations are when you kick back, relax, sip tall, cool drinks, maybe smoke a cigar, and dip your toes into cool water while you read a trashy novel.
Family trips are when you’re loaded up like a pack horse, carrying a backpack jammed with sunscreen, water, raincoats, hats, insect repellent, bug-bite antidote, and whatever else fits in there.
You lug this burden behind cavorting children at, say, an amusement park where all the rides give you vertigo, or retail stores where the beaded shirts and distressed minskirts have no place in your closet, or on a beach road where your load expands to include a blanket, towels and beach chairs.
Don’t get me wrong; I love family trips. Family trips bring anticipation during the drive, knowing you’ll wind up someplace exciting. Family trips mean great conversations, songs and laughter. Family trips bring the satisfaction that you’re showing the youngsters things they’d never experience otherwise.
Family trips are the best.
Just don’t call them vacations.
7/4/08
On Independence
By Jesse Roman
Be assured, the following is not an ode to the merits of patriotism. There are already too many of those in America. What is rarely considered, what seems to me an obvious omission, is the question of what patriotism actually means.
Is it synonymous with the kind of rah-rah nationalism that Daniel Webster captured in his 1850 speech when he declared to a frenzied crowd, ”I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!”
Is patriotism blind faith in your country, its people, its leaders and its principles, warts and all the “conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it,” as playwright George Bernard Shaw once said.
My country, right or wrong is the pseudo-tribalistic mindset that's often used as the litmus test for ‘true’ Americans.
Personally, I have always had a hard time following that type of blind faith. My thoughts on the subject lie somewhere between those of authors Mark Twain, who said that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it,” and author Sinclair Lewis, who believed, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Patriotism cannot just be a love for your country. With that must come a willingness to question it at every turn to ensure that the people who govern it stay true to the guiding principles by which it was founded. Among those principles, as we all know, are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I recently watched footage of a news broadcast that showed what can happen when so-called “patriotism” is taken to the extreme.
Taking offense to a Mexican flag, which had erroneously been hung a notch above the American flag on a pole in Reno, Nev., a man yanked down both flags in front of the owner, took the U.S. flag in his arms and tossed the Mexican flag on the ground. Then he said to the TV cameras:
“I took this flag down in honor of my country, with a knife of the United States Army! I am a veteran and I will not see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men. But I want someone to fight me for this flag, because they're not going to get it back!”
Some may look at this as a brazen act of valor. Others will cringe.
People can debate which reaction is right or wrong, but at least we have the freedom to engage in the debate. That¹s what makes ours the freest country in the world.
But to keep it that way we all need remain tolerant of other views, we must learn to compromise and we must stay vigilant of the fact that as Americans we are free to believe what we wish. If patriotism is used as a bludgeon to attack the moral fiber of free citizens and intimidate them into censoring their thoughts, then are we really free?
Be assured, the following is not an ode to the merits of patriotism. There are already too many of those in America. What is rarely considered, what seems to me an obvious omission, is the question of what patriotism actually means.
Is it synonymous with the kind of rah-rah nationalism that Daniel Webster captured in his 1850 speech when he declared to a frenzied crowd, ”I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American!”
Is patriotism blind faith in your country, its people, its leaders and its principles, warts and all the “conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it,” as playwright George Bernard Shaw once said.
My country, right or wrong is the pseudo-tribalistic mindset that's often used as the litmus test for ‘true’ Americans.
Personally, I have always had a hard time following that type of blind faith. My thoughts on the subject lie somewhere between those of authors Mark Twain, who said that “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it,” and author Sinclair Lewis, who believed, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Patriotism cannot just be a love for your country. With that must come a willingness to question it at every turn to ensure that the people who govern it stay true to the guiding principles by which it was founded. Among those principles, as we all know, are “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I recently watched footage of a news broadcast that showed what can happen when so-called “patriotism” is taken to the extreme.
Taking offense to a Mexican flag, which had erroneously been hung a notch above the American flag on a pole in Reno, Nev., a man yanked down both flags in front of the owner, took the U.S. flag in his arms and tossed the Mexican flag on the ground. Then he said to the TV cameras:
“I took this flag down in honor of my country, with a knife of the United States Army! I am a veteran and I will not see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men. But I want someone to fight me for this flag, because they're not going to get it back!”
Some may look at this as a brazen act of valor. Others will cringe.
People can debate which reaction is right or wrong, but at least we have the freedom to engage in the debate. That¹s what makes ours the freest country in the world.
But to keep it that way we all need remain tolerant of other views, we must learn to compromise and we must stay vigilant of the fact that as Americans we are free to believe what we wish. If patriotism is used as a bludgeon to attack the moral fiber of free citizens and intimidate them into censoring their thoughts, then are we really free?
6/27/08
Translating zoning-speak
By Scott Monroe
PUD and PRD. Ridgeline and hillside and fluvial erosion hazard overlay districts. Conditional change of use and clearcutting. Ingress and egress, curbcut and greenbelt, viewsheds and screening and watercourses and setbacks and dwelling units. And don’t forget density requirements and applicable lot coverage.
Um, what?
If you don’t know what most of those terms mean, I don’t blame you. It’s a sampling of many words I’ve become familiar with these last four and a half years as a reporter covering and writing about development.
It’s what I call zoning-speak: a specialized language used by the development and zoning community.
When I started at the Stowe Reporter, understanding these terms was a big challenge. In fact, it was a barrier. Who were these people talking in code and pointing long sticks at complicated, multilayered maps? Why can’t they say, “driveway,” “grass,” “road,” and “house”?
I’ve learned a lot in four and a half years. That’s not to say I’m a zoning expert today; I’m most certainly not. But I now know enough to be able decode most of the zoning-speak and, more importantly, explain it.
One of the most important jobs for a reporter is to be able to translate, to be an interpreter of these foreign languages. It’s not just zoning. Town government has its own language of invented, bureaucratic words and acronyms — “net budget,” “RFP,” and “fee schedule” come to mind.
So, too, does the news biz have its own language; inside our building here at 49 School St. you’ll hear us toss around many gems — “PDFing,” “Quark page,” “heds, subheds, dropheds, deckheds, overlines, leading, slugs, newshole, nut graf, lede, dingbats” and on and on.
When it comes to development, I’m aiming to translate zoning-speak into plain English for all our readers. I’m using common words instead of “specialized” ones.
A “greenbelt,” I have learned, is not an advanced level of martial arts; it’s a strip of grass. A “viewshed” is not an old lean-to in the back yard that contains hanging art; it’s what you can see from a particular direction.
And then there are the many, many acronyms. PUD stands for planned unit development; it’s land that’s developed in a single project, usually for commercial purposes, such as new a cluster of new buildings for stores and restaurants. There’s also a Ski PUD that applies to specifically to Stowe Mountain Resort. The PUD is not to be confused with PRD, a planned residential development (also known as a residential planned unit development), which focuses on the development of houses, condos or apartments in a single project.
When I wrote this week about the town’s zoning regulation overhaul I tried to take the code language and explain it simply. This particular story was easier than most; it focused mostly on parking and traffic issues and was based on a public hearing.
Most of the proposed zoning changes were approved this week. By clicking on that link, you can read Stowe’s zoning-speak in all of its glory in the 180-page zoning regulations. Have fun. Don’t operate heavy machinery while reading.
Plenty of zoning stories I’ve written have required a fair amount of translation. Issues of site density, internal and external setbacks, and buffer zones are pretty tough to explain short and simply.
Take “Piecasso plans slip on grass” from May 17, 2007. The issue, as I saw it, was that the Development Review Board was “concerned about loss of grassy space for parking” at the Piecasso restaurant, which planned an expansion of its seating and parking lot. That’s not exactly what the review board members said, but that’s basically what they meant when they bemoaned the elimination of “green space” and a “greenbelt” that served as a “buffer” for adjacent properties.
Complicating matters was the parking lot, the mathematical formulas involved, and how many parking spaces the restaurant needs. Zoning rules spell that out — one space for every three seats in the restaurant, plus one space for each person employed at the restaurant during the busiest times. The rules also allow the board to require more — or less — off-street parking than is normally required if there’s a “special condition” or “unique usage” to the property.
And here’s a doozy: “With approval of the (Development Review Board) the actual construction of parking spaces in lots requiring 50 or more parking spaces may be reduced by 20 percent. … All calculations shall be rounded up to the next whole number.”
Oh, yeah, and if there are “multiple uses” at the establishment, “the parking requirements may be reduced at the discretion” of the review board.
I can’t remember exactly, but I think the discussion of these various formulas and terms went on for at least one or two hours at the Development Review Board hearing.
And after all that talk about the parking lot, I decided on this explanation: Piecasso needed 64 spaces and eventually updated its plans to have 65. And the restaurant added more grass and trees to its plans.
How’s that for translation?
PUD and PRD. Ridgeline and hillside and fluvial erosion hazard overlay districts. Conditional change of use and clearcutting. Ingress and egress, curbcut and greenbelt, viewsheds and screening and watercourses and setbacks and dwelling units. And don’t forget density requirements and applicable lot coverage.
Um, what?
If you don’t know what most of those terms mean, I don’t blame you. It’s a sampling of many words I’ve become familiar with these last four and a half years as a reporter covering and writing about development.
It’s what I call zoning-speak: a specialized language used by the development and zoning community.
When I started at the Stowe Reporter, understanding these terms was a big challenge. In fact, it was a barrier. Who were these people talking in code and pointing long sticks at complicated, multilayered maps? Why can’t they say, “driveway,” “grass,” “road,” and “house”?
I’ve learned a lot in four and a half years. That’s not to say I’m a zoning expert today; I’m most certainly not. But I now know enough to be able decode most of the zoning-speak and, more importantly, explain it.
One of the most important jobs for a reporter is to be able to translate, to be an interpreter of these foreign languages. It’s not just zoning. Town government has its own language of invented, bureaucratic words and acronyms — “net budget,” “RFP,” and “fee schedule” come to mind.
So, too, does the news biz have its own language; inside our building here at 49 School St. you’ll hear us toss around many gems — “PDFing,” “Quark page,” “heds, subheds, dropheds, deckheds, overlines, leading, slugs, newshole, nut graf, lede, dingbats” and on and on.
When it comes to development, I’m aiming to translate zoning-speak into plain English for all our readers. I’m using common words instead of “specialized” ones.
A “greenbelt,” I have learned, is not an advanced level of martial arts; it’s a strip of grass. A “viewshed” is not an old lean-to in the back yard that contains hanging art; it’s what you can see from a particular direction.
And then there are the many, many acronyms. PUD stands for planned unit development; it’s land that’s developed in a single project, usually for commercial purposes, such as new a cluster of new buildings for stores and restaurants. There’s also a Ski PUD that applies to specifically to Stowe Mountain Resort. The PUD is not to be confused with PRD, a planned residential development (also known as a residential planned unit development), which focuses on the development of houses, condos or apartments in a single project.
When I wrote this week about the town’s zoning regulation overhaul I tried to take the code language and explain it simply. This particular story was easier than most; it focused mostly on parking and traffic issues and was based on a public hearing.
Most of the proposed zoning changes were approved this week. By clicking on that link, you can read Stowe’s zoning-speak in all of its glory in the 180-page zoning regulations. Have fun. Don’t operate heavy machinery while reading.
Plenty of zoning stories I’ve written have required a fair amount of translation. Issues of site density, internal and external setbacks, and buffer zones are pretty tough to explain short and simply.
Take “Piecasso plans slip on grass” from May 17, 2007. The issue, as I saw it, was that the Development Review Board was “concerned about loss of grassy space for parking” at the Piecasso restaurant, which planned an expansion of its seating and parking lot. That’s not exactly what the review board members said, but that’s basically what they meant when they bemoaned the elimination of “green space” and a “greenbelt” that served as a “buffer” for adjacent properties.
Complicating matters was the parking lot, the mathematical formulas involved, and how many parking spaces the restaurant needs. Zoning rules spell that out — one space for every three seats in the restaurant, plus one space for each person employed at the restaurant during the busiest times. The rules also allow the board to require more — or less — off-street parking than is normally required if there’s a “special condition” or “unique usage” to the property.
And here’s a doozy: “With approval of the (Development Review Board) the actual construction of parking spaces in lots requiring 50 or more parking spaces may be reduced by 20 percent. … All calculations shall be rounded up to the next whole number.”
Oh, yeah, and if there are “multiple uses” at the establishment, “the parking requirements may be reduced at the discretion” of the review board.
I can’t remember exactly, but I think the discussion of these various formulas and terms went on for at least one or two hours at the Development Review Board hearing.
And after all that talk about the parking lot, I decided on this explanation: Piecasso needed 64 spaces and eventually updated its plans to have 65. And the restaurant added more grass and trees to its plans.
How’s that for translation?
6/23/08
Change is fast and furious
by Marina Knight
By the time I finish writing this, something to do with our job as newspaper people will have changed.
Many have heard the news and seen the headlines – newspapers are suffering, readership is dwindling and publishers around the country are in a panic. Big papers like the New York Times are in turmoil – they recently closed all their suburban bureaus and now have one reporter covering all of New Jersey. They are trying to figure out how to re-capture their audience and make themselves relevant again.
I was reading a paper online recently and it referred to its print version as the “dead-wood” version.
The times are changing and changing fast. The “newspaper” or print template for feeding people information used to be effective, but the truth is that a newspaper can only provide people with a fraction of the information they need nowadays.
Simply telling people what is news is not enough and the Internet – particularly the precedent that’s been set by the speed at which people can find out information – has changed everything.
So, what we are trying to do, just like everyone else in this business, is paddle in hard to catch the wave that is cresting high overhead. If we don’t we’ll surely be smashed to the bottom and given a good tumble before we come back up sputtering for air.
Actually, the picture for us is not nearly as grim as it is for some other papers. The Stowe Reporter is doing well, we have not seen a decline in circulation and print ad revenue is healthy. Last year we started a newspaper in Waterbury, which I am sure puts us in very lonely company.
But while things are good, we recognize the change that’s upon us so we’re making a big effort to grow our online presence (www.stowetoday.com) in the community and become not just a news provider but the local information and connectivity utility.
While the majority of what we’ll continue to provide is local news coverage, news is just one the jobs we need to do now. This is a big change.
We are asking ourselves tough but tremendously exciting questions: What can we as a newspaper company become? How can we utilize the Internet to meet people’s current needs for information and connection to our community? How can we continue to remain relevant?
By the time I finish writing this, something to do with our job as newspaper people will have changed.
Many have heard the news and seen the headlines – newspapers are suffering, readership is dwindling and publishers around the country are in a panic. Big papers like the New York Times are in turmoil – they recently closed all their suburban bureaus and now have one reporter covering all of New Jersey. They are trying to figure out how to re-capture their audience and make themselves relevant again.
I was reading a paper online recently and it referred to its print version as the “dead-wood” version.
The times are changing and changing fast. The “newspaper” or print template for feeding people information used to be effective, but the truth is that a newspaper can only provide people with a fraction of the information they need nowadays.
Simply telling people what is news is not enough and the Internet – particularly the precedent that’s been set by the speed at which people can find out information – has changed everything.
So, what we are trying to do, just like everyone else in this business, is paddle in hard to catch the wave that is cresting high overhead. If we don’t we’ll surely be smashed to the bottom and given a good tumble before we come back up sputtering for air.
Actually, the picture for us is not nearly as grim as it is for some other papers. The Stowe Reporter is doing well, we have not seen a decline in circulation and print ad revenue is healthy. Last year we started a newspaper in Waterbury, which I am sure puts us in very lonely company.
But while things are good, we recognize the change that’s upon us so we’re making a big effort to grow our online presence (www.stowetoday.com) in the community and become not just a news provider but the local information and connectivity utility.
While the majority of what we’ll continue to provide is local news coverage, news is just one the jobs we need to do now. This is a big change.
We are asking ourselves tough but tremendously exciting questions: What can we as a newspaper company become? How can we utilize the Internet to meet people’s current needs for information and connection to our community? How can we continue to remain relevant?
6/17/08
Two little stories about my move to Stowe
BY BIDDLE DUKE
Let’s get something clear. I didn’t move to Stowe. I bought the Stowe Reporter.
That was an important distinction — more so then, when we made the move, and I was only 35 and in the middle of a newspaper career and my working life. I wasn’t retiring to the good life in a quaint resort town in Vermont. I had found a newspaper I could afford. That it was in a beautiful community with a sound economy and decent economic prospects and a great school sealed the deal, which went down May 1, 1998.
I remember when in March of that year I went to Peter Manigault, the chairman of the Evening Post Publishing Co. He’d been my mentor and my friend and he’d invested almost five years in me, teaching me much about business, journalism, life and friendship.
Peter was stunned by my choice. I was leaving his company of many newspapers and TV stations, where I had terrific prospects, and his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, a place that people want to move to, not away from, to buy a tiny newspaper with middling prospects and cold winters.
“You want to spend the next 10 years fleecing ski bunnies from Boston and New York?” he said in his halting manner.
Once I was in the saddle here, the questions from neighbors, most of whom I would discover had some economic connection to my new venture — as advertisers, readers, employees — were more rhetorical: “How did you decide on Stowe?”
I didn’t. Stowe had little to do with it. That response, of course, is not what most people imagined or probably what they wanted to hear. Most folks live here by circumstance or choice and people are comforted when the choices of others confirm their own. But I wasn’t going to do that. I moved to Stowe to run the newspaper; that it was located in a terrifically cool place just made that prospect more appealing.
It bears mentioning that one of the other papers I’d looked at was in Libby, Montana. I’d have moved there in a heartbeat for all the reasons that people are moving away. W.R. Grace’s vermiculite mine had contaminated the town and the paper was leading the charge against the big, bad corporation. If it wasn’t, it sure would have under my ownership. (W.R. Grace was eventually brought down by the Libby case).
My wife smacked away that idea. Who was I kidding? Moving our family to Montana was a stretch, but moving to a toxic mining town was a joke not even worth considering.
So Idoline, a UVM grad, greeted the prospect of Stowe like an oasis in the parched desert. Then we visited, saw that it was really nice — that the entire state of Vermont is an oasis — and made the decision that, yes, I could proceed with negotiations to purchase the Stowe Reporter.
Which I did.
And I’m sure glad I didn’t ruin my marriage and my health and move to Libby. I would never have discovered, 10 years later, what a great excuse buying the Reporter gave me for moving to Stowe and Vermont.
•••
The other story is tangential.
When we moved here, we didn’t waste any time finding a house, which is emblematic of how we approached this move: It was all business. We weren’t necessarily looking for the perfect home. It just had to work.
At the end of one day of searching, we spotted something in the window of McKee Real Estate, Brent Libby’s operation that is now the Sotheby’s affiliate on Mountain Road.
Brent was in. The house was up the street and we could see it right away. We went.
Other than being smack on the road, the house was ideal and in many ways picture perfect. And in our price range: $292,000. Four bedrooms, a pond, 2 acres, two old barns, within biking distance of town and schools.
We made an offer on the spot. Sold.
Of course, being all business, I went right to work on the house’s first problem: that cars were flying by some 10 yards from the front door. Within the first few weeks of moving in, I called and introduced myself to the very congenial police chief and explained my problem to him.
Ken Kaplan replied: “I’ll send a cruiser up there. That should slow people down.”
Genius, I thought. I like this town. The chief’s on my side.
Sure enough, one of the officers pulled right in to my driveway and parked facing the road. Pretty soon, he pulled out with his flashers on and pulled someone over.
Sonofagun, I thought, that’ll slow ’em down. Then another and another.
For the next few weeks, people were damn careful driving by my house. Those speeders. That showed ’em.
A few months later, a nice man I know threw a party for me. One of my neighbors, Chip Percy, attended, along with a bunch of other Percys. To be a Percy in Stowe is like being a Kennedy in Massachusetts — they own tons of land and businesses and are speckled throughout local government.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you how much I appreciated the way you introduced yourself to your neighbors,” said Chip. “You had the cops saying your hellos for you.”
What do you say at moments like that?
What I said was “Oh, darn. Sorry. I didn’t know they would issue tickets.” Which was the truth.
And all credit to Chip for pointing it out, clear and simple, the first time we met. He laughs now at the memory of what a dumbbell I was, and he’ll have that on me till I die.
What I didn’t know then and what I understand so well today is that almost nothing you do in a town of 5,000 or so is a secret. Which is pretty slow thinking for a newspaper publisher. But while I’d spent 15 years working and running newspapers, I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I took over the Stowe Reporter and moved, yes, moved, to Stowe, Vermont.
Let’s get something clear. I didn’t move to Stowe. I bought the Stowe Reporter.
That was an important distinction — more so then, when we made the move, and I was only 35 and in the middle of a newspaper career and my working life. I wasn’t retiring to the good life in a quaint resort town in Vermont. I had found a newspaper I could afford. That it was in a beautiful community with a sound economy and decent economic prospects and a great school sealed the deal, which went down May 1, 1998.
I remember when in March of that year I went to Peter Manigault, the chairman of the Evening Post Publishing Co. He’d been my mentor and my friend and he’d invested almost five years in me, teaching me much about business, journalism, life and friendship.
Peter was stunned by my choice. I was leaving his company of many newspapers and TV stations, where I had terrific prospects, and his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, a place that people want to move to, not away from, to buy a tiny newspaper with middling prospects and cold winters.
“You want to spend the next 10 years fleecing ski bunnies from Boston and New York?” he said in his halting manner.
Once I was in the saddle here, the questions from neighbors, most of whom I would discover had some economic connection to my new venture — as advertisers, readers, employees — were more rhetorical: “How did you decide on Stowe?”
I didn’t. Stowe had little to do with it. That response, of course, is not what most people imagined or probably what they wanted to hear. Most folks live here by circumstance or choice and people are comforted when the choices of others confirm their own. But I wasn’t going to do that. I moved to Stowe to run the newspaper; that it was located in a terrifically cool place just made that prospect more appealing.
It bears mentioning that one of the other papers I’d looked at was in Libby, Montana. I’d have moved there in a heartbeat for all the reasons that people are moving away. W.R. Grace’s vermiculite mine had contaminated the town and the paper was leading the charge against the big, bad corporation. If it wasn’t, it sure would have under my ownership. (W.R. Grace was eventually brought down by the Libby case).
My wife smacked away that idea. Who was I kidding? Moving our family to Montana was a stretch, but moving to a toxic mining town was a joke not even worth considering.
So Idoline, a UVM grad, greeted the prospect of Stowe like an oasis in the parched desert. Then we visited, saw that it was really nice — that the entire state of Vermont is an oasis — and made the decision that, yes, I could proceed with negotiations to purchase the Stowe Reporter.
Which I did.
And I’m sure glad I didn’t ruin my marriage and my health and move to Libby. I would never have discovered, 10 years later, what a great excuse buying the Reporter gave me for moving to Stowe and Vermont.
•••
The other story is tangential.
When we moved here, we didn’t waste any time finding a house, which is emblematic of how we approached this move: It was all business. We weren’t necessarily looking for the perfect home. It just had to work.
At the end of one day of searching, we spotted something in the window of McKee Real Estate, Brent Libby’s operation that is now the Sotheby’s affiliate on Mountain Road.
Brent was in. The house was up the street and we could see it right away. We went.
Other than being smack on the road, the house was ideal and in many ways picture perfect. And in our price range: $292,000. Four bedrooms, a pond, 2 acres, two old barns, within biking distance of town and schools.
We made an offer on the spot. Sold.
Of course, being all business, I went right to work on the house’s first problem: that cars were flying by some 10 yards from the front door. Within the first few weeks of moving in, I called and introduced myself to the very congenial police chief and explained my problem to him.
Ken Kaplan replied: “I’ll send a cruiser up there. That should slow people down.”
Genius, I thought. I like this town. The chief’s on my side.
Sure enough, one of the officers pulled right in to my driveway and parked facing the road. Pretty soon, he pulled out with his flashers on and pulled someone over.
Sonofagun, I thought, that’ll slow ’em down. Then another and another.
For the next few weeks, people were damn careful driving by my house. Those speeders. That showed ’em.
A few months later, a nice man I know threw a party for me. One of my neighbors, Chip Percy, attended, along with a bunch of other Percys. To be a Percy in Stowe is like being a Kennedy in Massachusetts — they own tons of land and businesses and are speckled throughout local government.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you how much I appreciated the way you introduced yourself to your neighbors,” said Chip. “You had the cops saying your hellos for you.”
What do you say at moments like that?
What I said was “Oh, darn. Sorry. I didn’t know they would issue tickets.” Which was the truth.
And all credit to Chip for pointing it out, clear and simple, the first time we met. He laughs now at the memory of what a dumbbell I was, and he’ll have that on me till I die.
What I didn’t know then and what I understand so well today is that almost nothing you do in a town of 5,000 or so is a secret. Which is pretty slow thinking for a newspaper publisher. But while I’d spent 15 years working and running newspapers, I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I took over the Stowe Reporter and moved, yes, moved, to Stowe, Vermont.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
