Heather Drinan will introduce Ilana Grallert who will give us the history of the Dartmouth Cemetery. I will avoid offering any deadly puns in the program description. 

 

 

Tom Csatari thanked all of those who helped with the Occum Pond on February 8, reporting that despite the fact that the pond was closed to skating our club only lost $300. 

 

Bob Boon offered a “mixed blessing” Happy Dollar to celebrate his survival of an accident on I-89 that made the front page of the Valley News. The accident involved his truck, a box truck that overturned, and at least one more vehicle. 

 

In another “mixed blessing” Happy Dollar, Bruce Atwood reported that he only broke a shoulder when he fell recently on the ice. 

 

And as a follow up to last week’s Happy Dollar, here’s a link to a Valley News article on Kevin Wenger’s twin daughters.  

 

Todd Allen won the raffle. 

 

 

Local author D. W. Allen (the nom de plume of our own David Allen) gave a very entertaining and informative presentation on his new book, Dappled Psychiatric. A self-described child of the Sixties, David listed Steinbeck, Vonnegut, and Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 as his literary muses. Based on the stories he told and the readings from his book, he seems to have succeeded in capturing their spirit. Set in Dappled, a fictional rural Minnesota town, the book opens with the musing of a child psychiatrist who was recently suspended from his job because he faced with 4 lawsuits. After reading the book's opening chapter, David offered three personal experiences that led to his decision to write a novel about psychiatry and informed his book. First, when he was in college his sister experienced breakdown and spent two years in hospital after which she fully recovered. Secondly, he drew on his later experience as Executive Director of a psychiatric unit in Houston in late 1980s where the typical stay was months instead of years, and the level of service was compromised. David offered some hilarious anecdotes on this assignment where he spent most of his time and energy mediating conflicts among the “crazy shrinks” he had to supervise. And finally, he drew on his experience as head of a struggling regional hospital in rural Minnesota in 2010, a hospital that had a psychiatric ward where average length of stay was down to 3-4 days, a length of stay that was dictated by finances and not medical science. He concluded his talk with an excerpt describing the need for the Dappled, Minnesota hospital to improve the “patient satisfaction survey” which is a major factor in terms of securing funding. Len Cadwallader read the book and gave it a rave review! At the conclusion Dave answered questions and signed copies. 

 

 

February 26 – Perry Allison, the Artistic Director of We The People Theater, will tell us about that group’s latest production: The Man of LaMancha

 

March 4 –Ben Van Vliet, Executive Director of the Upper Valley Music Center, will share some of the programs offered by his organization. 

 

March 11 – David Celone, Director of Development and Community Relations for West Central Behavioral Health will describe the services offered by that agency. 

 

March 18 – Dave Bradley, our tracker of birthdays and anniversaries, will offer a history of the Hanover Rotary Club, which he joined 48 years ago!  

 

March 25 – Jess Chayes will describe Northern Stage’s “Bold” program

 

Wayne Gersen