We were in St. Johnsbury this morning doing errands. No snow there. In fact, there's not much snow even in Danville Village - not like West Danville and Joe's Pond. I met a friend who lives in Concord and she told me Shadow Lake isn't frozen over yet. I think she was a little surprised that Joe's Pond is still frozen, except for strips through the narrows between each of the ponds.

Sure looks a lot like Christmas around here. Fred took some pictures while waiting for me to pick up JPA mail. As you can see, there's plenty of snow on the ground still, in spite of the warming trend we've had in the past couple of days.

The Joe's Pond Craft Shop is still open - Deb usually closes soon after Christmas; and Garey and Jane have Christmas trees and wreaths available.
Don't forget that there are some interesting items on our Local Products page that you might want to consider for unique Christmas gifts, in addition to what you can find at the Joe's Pond Craft Shop or Hastings Store. It's really nice to know personally the folks you're buying from and better yet if you know the person who actually made the product. And don't forget to enclose an Ice-Out Contest ticket or two in your cards or Christmas stockings. I'm sending them out regularly, and will be happy to send you some, too. Just let me know - click here to send me a message: jpwebmaster@fairpoint.net

In St. Johnsbury, things were very quiet. I went looking for craft supplies (I always get the urge to be artistic about now) but since I didn't find anything I was looking for, I think I can talk myself out of getting into any artsy projects this year. They usually don't come out all that great anyway, and I need to concentrate on the on-going projects I've been working on. I went to the Green Mountain Mall while Fred had an appointment, and everything there was very quiet, too. I guess it's still pretty early and folks are probably waiting for some sales to kick in and will then to their shopping last minute.

We bumped into Don and Val Mullalay - Don is still morning man at WSTJ, working from something like 5 to 9 a.m. I've known Don and Val for many years, and worked with Don at the radio station back when it was WTWN. I haven't heard Don sing for a while, but back in "the good old days," he had a great voice, and not only that, he did a mean jitterbug. A bunch of us would go to the Blue Moon on Memorial Drive on weekends, and there were usually great dance bands there. That was probably the closest to a night club St. J. ever had. The food was usually good, and going there made a fun night out with friends.

Dean Finney was owner of WTWN back then and he also brought big name bands to town - I remember Stan Kenton, Les Brown playing - it was probably particularly exciting for a number of really good musicians in St. J. like Don Magoon and Charlie Hoar who loved and mastered the big-band sound. Don M. usually got the Master of Ceremonies job, although sometimes Ken Greene did it. There were lots of small dance bands around then. That was the era of dance pavilions on Harvey's Lake, Cole's Pond and at Point Comfort here at Joe's Pond. There was H. Guy Dunbar who used to play at Point Comfort regularly, and there were two bands called The Ambassadors out of the Barre area, I think - one wore blue, the other had red jackets. I don't recall whether one was better than the other . . . and at Cole's Pond the bands were a little more country-western, as I remember.

That was when Tom and Shirley Kibbe had a morning show on WTWN and Wayne Griffin did an afternoon show of classical music. I remember my first experience on the air was as "Snowflake," one of Santa's elves - Santa didn't make it to the station one day and I was called upon to fill in. It was great fun, taking kids' calls, and I think I did it several times after that. I also remember beinig called upon to read the stock market reports, too, and I didn't have a clue - they told me that the + beside a number meant "up" and the - sign meant "down," and somehow I got through it ok. I also wrote copy with Shirley Kibbe and we learned early on it was really easy to break up Ken Greene on the air, but no matter what we wrote for Mullalay, he'd almost never miss a beat. Ken went on to WCAX in Burlington where he did a teen dance band show like Dick Clark's. The Kibbe's went to the Boston area, I think, and were doing public relations. The one constant about WSTJ/WTWN is Mullalay. The voice of radio in the Northeast Kingdom.

Someone said a while back that one of the fun things about this blog is that sometimes I take folks back a few decades. I'm betting there'll be a few people who will recognize some of the people I've mentioned this time, and I wish them pleasant memories.