2026 Life Logs, Day 48: From Falmouth to Waterbury, Vermont
Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Weather: Overcast; High Temp 35, Low 26 degrees F (in Waterbury)
Location: At Home at an Airbnb in Waterbury, Vermont
I made the trip from Falmouth to Waterbury, Vermont today, arriving here around 6 pm. I left home at 10 am, but I had four different stops to make before leaving town. And then I made a few stops along the way, enjoying the day of traveling.
Ollie and I will hold down the fort tomorrow and on Thursday while Heather, Jed, and Jonah head to Stowe to ski and snowboard. Ollie is content to just stay home, but I am hoping I can get him to go along on a few adventures.
Today was the beginning of the Lunar New Year (the year of the fire horse), the beginning of Ramadan, Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday), as well as George Washington’s birthday. It was also the day we lost Jesse long time civil rights activist, Jesse Jackson. He was known as an “impassioned orator” and I actually met him in 1971 when he was giving one of those passionate speeches. I was the audio-visual coordinator at Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ohio, at the time. It was a huge high school of 3,000 black students and we hosted national figures from Martin Luther King (before my time at the school) to Muhammad Ali. As AV Coordinator, I was in charge of the auditorium speaker system. On the day Jesse Jackson spoke, the microphone kept cutting off and on. (It turned out to be a short in the microphone cord.) But I was frantically trying to resolve the situation as he spoke and didn’t hear a word he said. Thankfully he had such a booming voice that people could still hear him when the mic cut out, but he was publicly not too happy with me. It was truly an unfortunate situation. But on this day of celebrations, I celebrate his life and his never-ending dedication to the idea of the “rainbow coalition” through the Rainbow/PUSH organization. They are still hard at work “to protect, defend, and gain civil rights by leveling the economic and educational playing fields, and to promote peace and justice around the world.” His legacy lives on.
