Winter 2007-2008
802: Vermont Connections
By Jessica Turner
By the Numbers:
5,700
Acres of snowboarding terrain in
Vermont
22,616
Vermont houses heated with wood
32° F
Temperature of Lake Champlain for last year’s Penguin Plunge, an annual Burlington bash in which participants take a quick dip to raise money for charity
1
Vermont’s national ranking for per capita consumption of oatmeal cereal
1893
Year that Rudyard Kipling invented snow golf, a derivative of golf on grass, which occupied the author during his winter months in Vermont
25.3
Inches of snow measured in Burlington after the 2007 Valentine’s Day blizzard, Vermont’s largest snowfall in a 24-hour period
50
Number of members signed up for ‘07–’08 at the Green Mountain
Curling Club in Morrisville, the first club of its kind in Vermont
754,000
Number of people who curl regularly in Canada
Conservation Buzz
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters of Waterbury will become the first company to carry a product endorsement label from Dr. Jane Goodall, the world-renowned chimpanzee conservationist.
The partnership began two years ago when Goodall put out a plea to the coffee industry, asking companies to help protect the habitat of chimps by raising the income of impoverished African farmers, who were constantly cutting forests to expand their farmland.
Green Mountain’s blend “Gombe Reserve” will now carry the label “Jane Goodall: Good for All,” based on Green Mountain’s increased payments to a coffee growers cooperative near Tanzania’s Gombe National Park.
Quiz Show: Four questions for Jeff Danziger
Jeff Danziger is an award-winning political cartoonist and author whose work regularly appears in The New York Times and Washington Post. He now lives in New York City after spending much of his life in Vermont, but still finds time to write the comic strip “The Teeds,” which depicts rural family life in Vermont. It can be seen in the Vermont Sunday Magazine, the magazine section of the Rutland Herald and the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.
What’s your favorite thing about Vermont?
The seasonal life. I always liked the way the year unfolded — the clock of getting ready for winter, the reward of spring, and then the summer just comes to you. Also, the people; the overall self-reliance of the people who live here.
What do you draw upon for the Vermont authenticity in “The Teeds”?
We had some neighbors in Plainfeld. They bought their farm in the ’60s and they were just a real farm family, a mom-and-pop operation. They had about 28 cows, did their own milking, put up their own hay. They were definitely the inspiration.
So you have a mental backlog of memories of your old neighbors that you continuously draw upon?
Mental backlog is about right! I just think back to the time when I moved to Vermont in the ’70s, and it was still possible for a mom and pop to run a family farm. Lots of hard work and plenty of Vermont creativity, but a sense of humor helped. It was a great life for many, but no one made very much money. I usually combine a bit of politics and economy, and some thought to the changing seasons as well.
From conception to completion, how long does it take to create a Teeds cartoon?
It usually only takes about an hour to put together a strip. I think slow, but I draw fast.
Say Cheese
Vermont cheesemakers won top honors at the 24th annual conference of the American Cheese Society, the country’s largest cheese competition. The Green Mountain state took home 41 awards, including 10 first-place wins, but Cabot Creamery was the big cheese, leading the Vermont pack with four blue ribbons.
From Hinesburg to Kenya
Each year, one teacher from a pool of 15,000 schools receives the National Teacher of the Year Siemens Award for Advanced Placement. This year’s recipient was David Ely, a biology teacher at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg.
A native Vermonter who has been teaching for 35 years, Ely used his $5,000 award to fund a trip to Kenya. There, he gave out art supplies and sports equipment and helped students plant trees. He also purchased three cows for a village inhabited by women and children disowned by their tribe.
The honor validates his long career, said Ely, and he cited a Greek proverb to sum up his experience: “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
