High school hoops mean more at The Aud

Last Saturday night, I was folding laundry at my home in Burlington, N.C., with WDEV’s feed in my headphones. I proudly listened in as my alma mater, Thetford Academy, won its sixth state boys basketball title in dramatic fashion. I didn’t know a single player’s name prior to Saturday, but it didn’t matter. I’ll always support Thetford Academy, even if from afar. Kudos to Coach Jason Gray and the Panthers on a third title in six seasons.

As I listened, I realized I’d come full circle on something. Growing up, there was no place like the Barre Auditorium. Its iconic floors, brick walls and stiff wooden bleachers transcend time. While Vermont has changed around it, The Aud has stayed the same.

A lot of things in youth seem exceptional but turn out to not be. If you ranked the U.S. states by the level of high school basketball played, Vermont may not rank in the top 49. If my research is correct, Vermont remains the only state in the U.S. never to have produced an NBA player.

So when I moved to North Carolina eight years ago and began covering sports for a local newspaper, I was impressed by how much talent was on the court. There was a future Division 1 college athlete in just about every high school game. Let’s just say I think most North Carolina basketball teams could compete at The Aud.

When it came time to see a state championship game at the “Dean Dome” — home of Univeristy of North Carolina basketball — I was excited. Except ... the experience was forgettable. There may have been 8,000 fans there, but that meant the building was at 40% capacity. It didn’t feel loud. It didn’t feel like I was watching history being made.

On Saturday, as I folded laundry and listened to the crowd erupt as Dave Moody yelled “bada bing!” with each made three-pointer, I beamed with pride over a bunch of kids I didn’t even know. I felt a deep connection to where I’d grown up. It just means more in Barre.

Charlie Pogacar

Burlington, NC

Can we make a world of gratitude?

Last Nov. 6 at a local funeral home I helped eulogize my college roommate, who fought an almost four-year battle with an intractable foe, pancreatic cancer.

Less than three weeks later I was diagnosed with the same disease. Since then I have experienced an almost unimaginable outpouring of love and prayers that have humbled me to my core — to be so unworthy and yet so grateful.

Eighteen of my college classmates, some of whom I have not heard from for 50 years, got together and sent me $6,000 to insulate my home. Neighbors stopped by with food, shoveled my walk, helped my poor, overwhelmed wife (who is a saint) with housework, even fed my wood stove. And family and friends came by and stayed with us and helped with day to day.

My musician friends, incredibly talented folks, came by and had jams with me at my home, which I swear are such an infusion of love that they are as therapeutic or more so than the infusions I get at Mary Hitchcock.

In short, thank you Jesus for your love and for saving me. And thank you every neighbor, relative and friend for the outpouring of love and prayers.

Couldn’t this world be a little bit more like the world I have seen than the suffering and war that we put on each other every day?

Matt Cardillo

Sharon

The ‘logic’ of Alabama’s IVF ruling

It is interesting how fast and hard the GOP is backtracking from the recent IVF ruling of the Alabama Supreme Court. When their extreme anti-abortion rhetoric might cause some negative financial results for IVF clinics (which often as a result of the medical process have “extra” eggs to dispose of or to freeze) they seem to have second thoughts about “going too far” with their political position.

However, I commend the Alabama court for carrying out to its logical end the anti-abortionists’ argument, i.e., that life begins at fertilization (even if by rape). Therefore, frozen embryos are “life” and should not be “killed” by disposing of them; with legal penalties for medical professionals if that should occur.

At least the court is being logical and morally consistent, in contrast to those radical anti-abortionists who actually vote for laws restricting legal abortions to six weeks, or 15 weeks, or anytime short of the old standard about life viability of the fetus outside the womb. These politicians are actually, in my opinion, voting to kill fetuses that are alive. How logically consistent is that? But the heck with logical consistency when a political end is threatened.

Philip Eller

Norwich

If gambling is bad now, just wait

I suspect I am not alone in seeing the irony of the now former Listen director pleading guilty to embezzling hundreds of thousands in funds and gambling them away (“Former director guilty of fraud,” Feb. 28), juxtaposed with the approval of a gambling casino to be located right next door to the Listen Center on the Miracle Mile in West Lebanon.

James Lynch

Hanover

A few (more) words about oats

In re. “Over Easy: Oats for America”: “Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

Ben Johnson’s Dictionary, 1755.

Richard Andrews

Springfield, Vt.