Dan Mackie’s Sept. 14 column “Where Have All the Locals Gone?” was poorly conceived, adds nothing to the conversation, and is more than a little bit offensive.
The first sentence gives the whole problem away: “I am not a sociologist — or ologist of any kind — but I may be on to something.” Except he’s not. He’s merely rediscovered a dangerous thing called “pointless nostalgia,” where every local character was an aging white guy. Not one of the named “characters” in this column was a woman. Are women never “characters?”
See, the problem isn’t that the Upper Valley has lost its characters. It’s that the columnist doesn’t recognize them. This community is full of people doing extraordinary, generous and occasionally ridiculous things. They just may not be named Clyde.
They’re starting tiny businesses in an uncertain economy. They’re running food shelves, coaching kids, organizing festivals, repairing trails, opening restaurants, making art, running farms, putting on plays, staffing volunteer fire departments, building housing, holding up political signs on street corners, rescuing animals, launching nonprofits and figuring out how to make a life here when the price of housing is squeezing family budgets.
Some of them have Vermont accents. Some have Spanish accents, Indian accents or Southern accents. Does that make them less colorful? No. Communities change because people change.
The Upper Valley of 2026 is not the Upper Valley of 1982, just as the Upper Valley of 1982 wasn’t the Upper Valley of 1942. Dairy farms closed. The hospital grew. Retail changed. The internet happened. Women entered jobs they were once excluded from. Queer families became visible. Immigrants arrived.
That isn’t the disappearance of local culture. That is local culture.
Sarah Pinneo, Etna