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:
One morning last fall my husband called to me to come quickly and look out on our deck. Expecting to see a squirrel, chipmunk, or an interesting bird, I was very surprised to see a small weasel scampering around, checking things out. We had never seen one in our woods or yard before. It was light brown with a white belly and a long tail with a dark tip—making it a long-tailed weasel, we found out. We speculated about how it came to be in our back yard woods, and whether there were any others.
This was also the day we were planning to go to the Lebanon recycling center and dump, so a bit later we opened up the sliding door to our VW van and prepared to load up. We left it open as we generally do while we collected all our trash and recyclables.
Finally ready, we closed the van door and headed off. When we got to the intersection of Glen Road and South Main Street (near the Powerhouse and Hannafords) I thought I heard something rustle in the back. I looked back and didn’t see anything, so I assumed a bag of plastics must have shifted as we drove over a bump. But then at the light I heard it again. This time when I looked back, a cute little weasel face was looking back at me. “It’s the weasel!” I exclaimed. It quickly dove under some recycling, but soon reappeared, giving my husband a chance to see it too. We wanted to let it out quickly, but we were stuck at the light with cars to our right and left, nowhere to turn off the road.
It seemed like an extraordinarily long red light. But finally it changed. The first place that looked likely for a good place to release the weasel was the parking lot next to the shoe store and just before the tire store, as there were woods accessible in the back. We turned in, jumped out, and opened all the doors and back hatch. But the weasel didn’t appear inclined to come out. Foolishly, I called to it, as if it were a cat, which of course just frightened it. After we moved farther away, it ventured toward an open door, but seemed hesitant about jumping down. Eventually it braved the jump and ran off to hide under the nearby dumpster.
We checked a minute later and it was gone—into the woods that led down to the river. We assured ourselves that this was probably good weasel habitat, and hoped it would find food and other weasels.
We proceeded on to the dump and the usual 12A chores. The saga of the “unexpected weasel,” though, was the highlight of the day.
— Elizabeth Nestler, Lebanon
Dear Daybreak:
Owl
Sitting at the piano on a winter morning playing ‘Blackbird’ over and over and over lost in the reverie of sounds and melody pausing for a moment and looking up to a large barred owl staring straight back through the window from a maple limb not twenty feet away
Was it in the music? I’ve never known the origin of beauty but only this— that some times and in some places with the slightest of openings wonder and delight may swoop down and glide in unnoticed without any warning
By Austin Brose, Sharon
— Danny Dover, Bethel
Dear Daybreak:
A friend recently told me about the You Tube channel History with Cara. Not long ago, Cara bought a 1925 diary written by a 16-year-old girl in Hanover, and has been reading one entry per day. [Here’s how Feb. 5, 1925 begins: “Carnival started tonite. The fancy skating was marvellous. A Miss Carlisle and a Miss Peterson were very, very good. They also had a comic skater.”]
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I3XaLje8ioI
Here’s a link to the entire series, which starts with Jan. 1 and is up to Feb. 10.
Cara blurs out last names so that, theoretically, privacy is protected, and asks that viewers not spoil the surprise by revealing Louise’s last name. But with a little digging, one can figure it out. Her father was a prominent businessman in Hanover who died far too young….. I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you, but if you want to know more right now, here’s a link to his obituary in a 1932 Dartmouth Alumni Magazine; it’s the second obit under Class of 1899. I found the last paragraph to be an especially thoughtful and beautiful description of the man. It reads: “He illustrated the simple truth that any man's own local habitation can be a real center of the universe. A man need not travel widely. He need but to have an eye, keen to see; a hand, swift to do; a heart, eager to serve; and above all…the quiet independence of his own soul."
PS: On a somewhat related rabbit hole, his sister also made an impact on her community of Bristol, NH, and upon her death was described as "New Hampshire Suffragist, Newspaper Editor, Printer, Civic Leader, 1875-1944.”