Today at the top of Vermont

The big news around here is the snow. A foot or so fell on Thursday and Friday. Most everyone up here is glad to see it. If you hate winter you don't hang around on the US/Canadian border. The guy who re-opened our village gas station last week is surely happy. The gas station reopening is a big deal. It had been teetering along for years before the fire last Fall, mostly staffed by a local friendly, if beleagured, grandmother. I think had been looking for an exit for a long while before the fire. She was always nice to me and I sympathized with her, albeit silently. Several notices against trespass were hung near the newspaper stand. The place was robbed at least twice in the last ten years (hence the notices against trespass... even if the guys were never "caught," she had a good idea who had done it). The new owner is a village selectman and he has done the place up right: gutting it to the walls. It has new floors, new ceilings, a pizza oven and deli and place to sit and eat pizza and sandwiches. Most important of all, it has new pumps with brand new tanks: installed over several days in some serious cold by some serious big equipment. A snowmobile trail runs within 30 feet of the place and his gas pumps are the last ones the Quebecers hit on their way back into Canada. He can charge a little extra. I don't begrudge him.