These are short “bloggish” feature pieces that could be about anything. I put work and love into these stories and hope you find them interesting. Check the intro boxes to see if there’s anything that intrigues. Most take no more than a few minutes to read unless otherwise warned. (All content and photos by Ricka McNaughton except unless otherwise noted.)
The tale of a lovelorn wild pheasant who came looking for love at my place in Vermont, and the plight of some wild non-natives just trying to survive.
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In this photo I took some years ago is Arnold Schwartzenegger, on the right. To his left is telecommunications tech Ray Bessette, who had an office in the building I worked in. It was widely known that Ray was a huge Schwartzenegger fan. I had a hand in a little caper to provide Ray the chance to meet his hero in person. In this post about my work photographing this person or that, primarily for a bygone publication called Vermont News & Views, you’ll find that story and others my vault that have mildly interesting historic value or a special place in my memories. Some of the photos I took have never been published elsewhere.
Tags: Former Vermont Governor Richard Snelling, former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin, her former aide Elizabeth Bankowski, former Vermont Governor James Douglas, former State Archivist Gregory Sanford, State Police Dive Team members Lt. Dean George, Trooper Gary Gaboury, and Trooper Warren Whitney, author, teacher and legislator Bill Mares, and former state postmaster Raymond Houghton.
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The man with the dagger grip on the pie knife in the inset photo is our friend Dave Bulow of Adamant, Vermont. One year I made this pie for him, a spin on a savory French dish called a tortiѐre, in appreciation of a skilled and generous act of tree-felling he performed for us when my family and I lived in rural East Montpelier, a few miles from Dave. He took down four enormous, aging spruce deemed a hazard to our house. I fight sentimentality when it comes to such things, yet I hated to see those grand old souls meet the chain saw. At their journey’s end, they had a surprise for us.
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Medical history seems to have forgotten to note a family physician’s invention of a device, in 1926, that was first to transmit a patient’s heartbeats by telephone wire from the patient’s home across town to the doctor’s office. This is a look at the life of Jersey City (NJ) physician Dr. A. E. Jaffin, who invented this device, but was better known for his efforts to eradicate tuberculosis and had a role in providing free medical care to all in need in his city. His story evolved from a box of family papers.
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Tags: Dr. A. E. Jaffin, N.J. Governor Frank Hague, Jersey City Medical Center, Helene Yurman
Who was Jack Jaffin and what was he doing in a box of family photos? In this 1941 photo, Jack is the guy in the double-breasted suit at right, next to Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor (he who notably passed up the throne of England to marry divorcee Wallis Simpson.) Published accounts upon Jack’s death told of his connections to many celebrities of his time and place. He lived a glitzy life completely foreign to mine. The sort of relative you’d think someone would have told you about. I don’t recall ever hearing a word about him.
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Tags: Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, NY Governor and Mrs. Alfred Smith. Dr. John “Jack” Jaffin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, author/artist Will James, Queen Marie of Romania, Cary Grant, Broadway’s Frederick Loewe
Our old unused silo in East Montpelier, Vermont, had leaned precipitously for decades. Then, something spectacularly strange happened.
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Here’s a rubble of thoughts (and pics) in praise of Vermont’s iconic old fieldstone walls, stonemason Thea Alvin, and other Vermont “wallers.” I showed up at Thea’s place to chat a few days before Oprah Winfrey’s film crew came to do an inspirational piece about her work. (There’s a link to that episode, too.) Plus, what happened when I attempted to learn the art of building a fieldstone arch.
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Tags: Thea Alvin, Dan Snow, Jacob Miller