We all have a duty as citizens to engage in the political process - as I did this winter, when I testified before the state Legislature on behalf of preserving net neutrality.

Ever since I began writing about Vermont schools — more than 40 years ago — I’ve been struck by a couple of things.

Theodore Roosevelt called the Presidency “a bully pulpit” – a wonderful platform from which to proclaim policy and influence major events and issues.

I never thought I’d live in an America where small children would be taken from mothers seeking safety in the United States. And I’ve been feeling helpless to stop this cruelty.

Short orchestral music selection... That’s a passage from Intrada, by Ralph Vaughn Williams, performed a few weeks ago by the Northeast Kingdom Community Orchestra. My daughter is one of the cellists, so I’m bragging here a little. On the other hand, I myself am a truly awful violinist. I started way too late in life and rarely practice, so I’ll never be as good as the 16 elementary and middle schoolers playing along with the adults in this concert, on violins they’ve been given - along with

2018 has been declared The Year Of The Bird - the one-hundredth anniversary of the landmark agreement between Canada, Mexico, and the United States to protect the birds that migrate across the continent.

I guess it’s not surprising that, like much of my generation, the 1980s left an indelible imprint on how I see the world.

I’ve finally reached that equilibrium we all seek between mind and body. And at my age, I’m proud to be both a Roads Scholar and a Gravel-road Slalom competitor, a sport to which most newcomers can only aspire – since the main qualification is to live year-round at the end of four miles of one of Vermont’s numerous dirt roads.

I didn't know that the current opiate crisis is actually the third such epidemic in our nation’s history. Nor did I know that genetic factors account for between 40 to 60 percent of a person’s vulnerability to addiction - or that Fentanyl and Carfentanyl are making heroin use more dangerous.

The 2018 legislative session will be known as the year that Vermont took an important step towards reducing gun violence.