On Saturday, the Rotary Club of Lebanon and the Lebanon Conservation Commission will sponsor another Mascoma River cleanup.
We will gather at the Carter Community Building pavilion at 9.30 a.m. for instructions and assignment to a team of four or five people and a section of the river.
I vividly remember the very first cleanup, in July 1995, when about 50 volunteers descended on the river. Looking over the pictures of that event I am still impressed by the amount of trash one encountered in the river. At one time we managed to hoist out a 300-pound boiler — although this required a diver and a backhoe loader. Afterward, there was a free lunch for the volunteers and a thunderstorm with winds so fierce that some of us had to hang onto the tent to prevent it from blowing away.
I do realize, however, that thanks to our efforts over the last 25 years, the condition of the river has improved tremendously.
So, please come and help to make it even cleaner — if even for no other reason than to wander in and out of the river to appreciate this meandering jewel in our midst.
Need more information? visit www.rotarylebanonnh.org. Interested? Here is the email address to sign up: Lebanon.nh.rotary@gmail.com You can also leave your name and phone number at 603-448-5115 and we’ll email you an information sheet.
ERNST OIDTMANN
Lebanon
If we could, all of us would go to Washington, D.C., to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Regardless of one’s politics, it is very moving to see and feel the names of the American service members who lost their lives in that war. Especially as the American war in Vietnam resonates now with our departure from the American war in Afghanistan, the loss of life is even more poignant and important to acknowledge and honor.
As many of us are not able to make it to Washington, it is exciting that there is a “traveling” Vietnam Veterans Memorial on display today in Brattleboro, between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., at the Fulflex Field on Putney Road, just off Interstate 91 at Exit 2.
This “Moving Vietnam Wall” is hosted by Tri-State Chapter 843 of the Vietnam Veterans of America. Everyone is invited to visit. We hope to see as many visitors as possible during this special time in Brattleboro.
DONALD KOLLISCH
Hanover
My father was a career military man and I watched him struggle with an issue that I now struggle with myself. He was in the military during the Cold War, and therefore strongly believed that the Soviets did not wish us well.
When people pointed out that the Russians loved their children too, he was unmoved. When people asserted that the military was unnecessary or problematic, he was mystified. He also struggled with his role in the larger story of our country: He had worked to keep America safe, and when he came across Americans who believed that the work he had done was not only unnecessary but actually harmful to the greater good, he simply did not know how to respond.
I now find myself in a similar situation. I have gotten vaccinated, and all of my loved ones have done likewise. Yet there are those in our community who have not. More than that, there are those who believe that the COVID-19 vaccination is some sort of evil conspiracy, and that President Joe Biden using his authority to mandate vaccinations is somehow analogous to Nazi death camps.
That such beliefs have currency is unsurprising. There have always been those who have decried vaccinations as a vast conspiracy of one sort or another. I know this. However, I still find it breathtaking. These people are only alive today because the rest of us made the choice to get vaccinated, thus insulating them from the consequences of their backward beliefs. That is, we who have gotten vaccinated are the army, holding back the rising tide of COVID-19 with our very bodies. And the anti-vaxxers, with their dangerously naive beliefs, are the ones we have protected.
It is difficult to reconcile myself to this, particularly when the anti-vaxxers are not only ungrateful but also abusive. How do you respond to someone who spits on you after you have stood up to safeguard his or her life?
More than that, how do you respond to those who spit on you precisely because you have safeguarded their life? Ask a veteran.
GLENN WYLIE
Strafford