Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, some wry exchange with a stranger or acquaintance… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and strikes a contributor as interesting or funny or poignant—or that makes us appreciate living here.

Dear Daybreak:

To the log splitter, in gratitude

Engine piston wedge cleaves trees, sun and rain fuel the elegant machine

— Paul Jensen, Woodstock. Who writes: “I was inspired by the beautiful Sunday I had splitting wood at a pal's cabin property on the back side of Saskadena Six.”

Dear Daybreak:

As we were packing away deck furniture in our shed today, I saw the bulletin board below and remembered a remarkable act of kindness that happened during a recent fire at our beloved home in Strafford. A thing that I will remember for the rest of my life.

It was while standing helplessly, watching so much being destroyed as firefighters from many towns worked side by side, streaming in and out of our house, trying and succeeding in saving most of our home. This bulletin board had rested against the wall on my desk above where I work; it holds the faces and smiles of so many loves in my life. Friends, family, some of whom have passed on, and all who hold special places in my heart. Beautiful cards, quotes that speak to me.

Before the firefighters arrived, I had entered our bedroom and seen the fire entering my home, my sacred space, as I stood briefly trying to decide what to grab. Then I saw the window next to this bulletin board implode and realized nothing was worth my life. I turned and shut the door behind me and fled outside.

Later, I stood outside in terror, watching firefighters stream in and out of our home. I saw a firefighter come out of our burning home with this bulletin board in his hands and gently lean it against the outside of my house and then, with his respirator in place, with his tank on his back, he turned and went back in.

I don’t know who you are, and if you are reading this I want to honor you, and thank you for such an intentional act of kindness that will affect me forevermore.

— Anita Onofrio, Strafford

Dear Daybreak:

I heard sounds of traffic on the Miracle Mile in Lebanon, noise of I-89 with distant views of speeding vehicle somewhere ahead, but hidden beyond some bushes bordering a parking lot, the peace and quiet of the ever changing Mascoma River.

— Laura Harris-Hirsch, Lebanon