What would the New Year be without a look back and a look forward? While News Editor Mike Eldred takes a look back on the year that was on page 2, we thought we’d have a little fun and speculate on what might take place in the coming year. We hope readers enjoy our not-so-possible speculations.

Several Readsboro residents will be injured in a brutal street brawl over a receipt for a 39-cent faucet washer missing from the sewer department’s financial records. The state will declare martial law and occupy the selectboard office until everyone agrees to say something nice about their neighbor and shake hands.

Wilmington will vote to keep their pergola. Immediately following the vote, opponents of the structure will submit a petition to revote. In the second referendum, Wilmington residents will vote to remove the structure, whereupon it will be removed and burned on Baker Field. Within a month, Wilmington residents will submit a petition demanding that an identical pergola be constructed on the same spot. Voters will spend several hours arguing over the meaning of the word “identical” before passing the measure. A local cartoonist will be hired to design and build the identical pergola.

While drilling for snowmaking water, crews at Haystack will strike oil. As soon as the geyser is capped off, Mount Snow will file a suit claiming all mineral rights to the property, and the state will fine Haystack for violating their Act 250 permit. Haystack will fill the well back in and tear down their model townhome.

Facing plummeting revenues, the state will institute a new system of education taxation based on the alphabet. Residents in towns that begin with “W” or “D,” for instance, will pay a 50% tax penalty. Residents in towns that begin with “B” or “M” will collect a 30% tax benefit, with the balance going to the state.

The state of Vermont, believing that “gold towns” actually have gold, will require Deerfield Valley residents to pay their tax in bullion bars.

Wilmington and Whitingham voters will agree not to approve funding for a proposed Twin Valley High School, citing their expectation for future funding from “divine and miraculous sources.”

The Mount Snow Valley Chamber of Commerce will continue to develop events to draw visitors to the region. Their newest entry will be “I (Heart) Mud Season.” Participants will enjoy a number of spectator and hands-on activities, including “Driving down a dirt road six inches deep with mud,” “Replacing snowplow divots in the lawn,” and “The muddiest vehicle contest.” The weeklong festivities will culminate with a mud-wrestling competition on volleyball court #2 at the Sitzmark.

In a stunning move, the Tri-town and Dover economic development committees will merge, and then hire a 10-year-old Girl Scout, Theresa “Twinkie” Goodnow, as the new entity’s director. Officials will claim they hired the Scout based on her extraordinary track record. Goodnow holds the single-season New England cookie-selling record, having sold over 10,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in a three-month period. Said one town official off the record, “If Twinkie can bring those kind of results to the job, we’ll all be doing a Do-Si-Do.”