Where we live and the local rag

So, I was thinking that one question that may be on the minds of the faithful readers of our young blog is, "Where exactly do Brian and Kate live again?" Allow me to elaborate. My job is at Dartmouth College, which is located in the town of Hanover, NH (population 8,000 or so). Hanover, however, is part of a broader region of communities that surround the Connecticut River in both New Hampshire and Vermont. This region calls itself the Upper Valley, which is especially interesting to me since my parents hail from a region of Texas known locally as the Upper (Rio Grande) Valley. In any event, Kate and I have chosen to rent an apartment in an area known as West Lebanon, which is about 4 miles south of Hanover and the College. West Lebanon is not a real city; it is part of the municipality of Lebanon, the heart of which is about 3 miles to the east (making West Lebanon, well, west of Lebanon). We live less than a mile from a bridge that crosses the Connecticut River into White River Junction, Vermont.

As nice as Hanover is, a town of 8,000 would be tough to live in if it was not surrounded by some other communities. When you combine Hanover and Lebanon/West Lebanon in New Hampshire, and add to that towns such as Norwich and Hartford/White River Junction in Vermont, what you really have is a region of perhaps 50,000 or 60,000 people. This number of people means that in our vicinity we have the resources to support a population of that size. The highlights include several grocery stores, a bowling alley, Kohl's, Best Buy, Home Depot, Borders, JC Penney, Wal-Mart, and even a Panera Bread within 2 or 3 miles of our house. No Starbucks, unfortunately.

One community resource our area sports is the Valley News, a daily newspaper earnestly trying to report news in an area that teters on the edge of being able to generate enough news to fill a daily newspaper. Kate and I, wanting to learn as much about our new community as we can and also to learn about various happenings in the area, have picked up the Valley News several times. It has been helpful - for instance, we learned about a Farmers Market and a Town Square celebration over in Norwich, VT yesterday and were able to attend both. They were both delightful, and we now have some expensive, organically grown local produce in our fridge.

However, we've also seen some curious articles in the Valley News, such as the one about a local family's missing parrot (started on Section C, Page 1 and continued on page C5). Another nice article was the one about some heated exchanges on the Thetford, VT town list-serv (in the past year, three listserv administrators have resigned due to contentious cyber debate). Excellent stuff! The Valley News has a few too many AP stories for my taste, but does do a good weather forecast and, as mentioned above, has a thorough community calender. Small-town news gems like the two articles above are part of the fun of small-town living, and, while I don't think we'll become subscribers, Kate and I will certainly enjoy an occasional dose of the Valley News.