I usually find the final few weeks before Labor Day to be weirdly, and almost unbearably, melancholy. The weather starts to gesture toward fall, and the promise of early summer is gone. If you didn’t make it to the beach, will you? All those plans to swim every day, become an expert ice cream maker, and eat ripe berries with abandon either came to fruition, or they didn’t. This year though, all I see around me is abundance. Right now farms, orchards, and my own garden …
Letter from Vermont: Let’s not blow it now
Over the past year I’ve had the very weird experience of living in a place that has handled the pandemic pretty well. Here in Vermont, our governor, Phil Scott, holds press conferences three times a week. They play on the radio and television, and he and the state’s leaders in health care, education, and economics answer questions from journalists. Scott is not a beloved politician by any means, but there’s a near universal grudging sense of respect …