Redhawk Lucia Llona hangs onto the ball during the May 23 game against Mount Mansfield. (Observer photo by Shane Bufano)

By Mal Boright

Observer correspondent

As an old song might have gone, “There is no place like home during playoff time.”

The Champlain Valley Union High boys and girls lacrosse teams open the Division 1 playoffs on their Hinesburg grass, the boys on Wednesday and the girls on Friday.

Coach Dave Trevithick’s fifth-seeded 11-5 boys took on 12th-seed 1-15 Burlington High on Wednesday. A victory meant a trip to fourth seed 11-4 Woodstock Union on Friday.

The girls are seeded fourth and are set for a home contest on Friday (4:30 p.m.) against fifth-seeded Brattleboro Union, also 9-5. A win would bring a likely meeting on Tuesday at top seed 12-1 South Burlington High. The Rebels will be matched on Friday against either eighth-seeded Mount Mansfield Union or ninth seed Essex High.

Both CVU teams bowed in their final regular season games.

The boys got tripped 15-9 on Friday night at Essex High, despite three goals and two assists from Chris Bulla, plus a pair of scores and two helpers from Alex Bulla. It was the Redhawks’ second loss to the Hornets, who took possession of the “Bucket” for the next 12 months.

The girls also lost on Friday, bowing to 14-2 Middlebury by a 14-8 tally. The Tigers earned their second win over CVU, which got two goals each from Abby Owens and Jessica Dudley.

By Kim Dannies

Fresh mint is a beloved herb. Abundant and easy to harvest, mint adds volume and vibrant sparkle to every dish it graces. Mint is vivacious—OK, truth—it is invasive. Keep your garden in mint condition by planting it in a large container pot and enjoy its bountiful splendor all summer long.

Minty Spring Pea Hummus

Heat 1 T of olive oil in a pot over low-medium heat. Add 1/2 cup chopped red onion and sauté until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add 2 cups of fresh shelled or frozen peas, 2 garlic cloves, and 1 cup of water. Cover and bring to a boil. Simmer five minutes; drain the peas and onions.

De-stem 3 cups of fresh mint and chop leaves in a food processor. Add the peas, 2 T of tahini, 2 T of sour cream, salt and pepper to taste. Pulse until you have a rough purée. Makes 4-6 servings.

Minted Turkey Burgers

In a medium prep bowl combine 1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey with 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion. Mix in 2 cups of freshly chopped mint, 1 T finely chopped fresh ginger, 1 T vegetable oil, 1 scant teaspoon chili powder, 1 t salt, and 1 t garam masala. Lightly moisten your hands and form the mixture into 4 patties. Fill a shallow bowl with panko breadcrumbs. Coat the patties in the panko.

Heat a nonstick skillet with 1 T olive oil on medium heat. Fry patties in a covered skillet until browned and cooked through, six minutes each side, turning once, pressing gently. To ensure the meat is cooked through, check the center of a burger. Place burgers on beds of lightly mixed greens; top with minty hummus. Serves 4.

Springtime Tabouli

Place 2 cups of bulgur wheat in a bowl and pour boiling water over until just covered. Set for 10 minutes; fluff with a chopstick. Combine 3 cups sliced grape tomatoes, 4 sliced scallions, and one fistful each of fresh mint and parsley, chopped. Toss veggies with 4 T olive oil, and 4 T of lemon juice; season with salt and pepper; fold into the bulgur. Serves 4-6.

Kim Dannies is a graduate of La Varenne Cooking School in France. She lives in Williston with her husband, Jeff. They have three twenty-something daughters, who come and go. For archived Everyday Gourmet columns go to kimdannies.com.

Gypsy Reel will preform on June 9 at the Central Vermont 50+ EXPO in Killington. For more information, visit www.vermontmaturity.com/expo, call 802-872-9000, ext. 21, or email [email protected] (Courtesy photo)

Vermont Maturity Magazine will present the Central Vermont 50+EXPO on Saturday, June 9 at the Killington Grand Resort Hotel & Conference Center, 228 East Mountain Road in Killington from 9:30 a.m.—4 p.m.

The EXPO is a day of fun and learning designed for Vermonters age 50 and older, though all ages are welcome to attend this free event. It offers a wide range of activities and entertainment, including: a concert by world renowned Celtic rock group Gypsy Reel; a performance by The Potluck Folk Singers; art workshops by select Killington Arts Guild members; wine tasting ($5); Vermont microbrew tasting ($5); a series of seminars on topics including dating, travel and “the Sandwich Generation”; silent auction to benefit the Vermont Alzheimer’s Association; line dancing; great giveaways including tickets for two to see the Boston Red Sox and the New England Patriots; plane tickets to Boston and much more.

For 17 years, Williston Publishing and Promotions LLC has produced one of the longest-running and most successful events in the U.S. for baby boomers and seniors, held in Burlington every winter. Now, it is bringing a new version of this exciting event to central Vermont.

Admission is free, and there is plenty of free parking.

For more information, visit www.vermontmaturity.com/expo, call 802-872-9000, ext. 21, or email [email protected] 

 Tommy Tutone’s Jim Keller plays The Monkey House

By Luke Baynes

Observer staff

Jim Keller Band members (from left to right) Jim Keller, Byron Isaacs and Scott Metzger perform at The Monkey House in Winooski on May 2. Jim Keller, who co-wrote and played lead guitar on Tommy Tutone’s 1982 hit single ‘867-5309/Jenny,’ released his second solo album last fall. (Observer photo by Luke Baynes)

An archetypal slice of ’80s power pop met a prototypical Vermont hippie bar when Jim Keller of Tommy Tutone fame played at The Monkey House in Winooski on May 2.

Along with Wilson Pickett’s “634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)” and The Marvelettes’ “Beechwood 4-5789,” Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny” is the most famous seven-digit phone number in pop music history.

It’s the song that made Tommy Tutone a household name in the spring of 1982 and inspired thousands of late night callers to dial the number in the hope that a sultry female voice would pick up on the other end.

Yet Tommy Tutone was not, as many people at the time assumed, the name of a man. Nor was it the one-hit wonder that most people think of it as today.

Tommy Tutone is instead the name of the Bay Area bar band—led by Tommy Heath on lead vocals and Keller on lead guitar—that scored a Top 40 hit with “Angel Say No” prior to achieving pop immortality with the song that forced prank victims in area codes across the country to change their phone numbers.

Unable to repeat the runaway success of “Jenny,” Tommy Tutone broke up two years and one album after making its national splash.

Heath moved to Portland, Ore.  and became a computer analyst, sporadically getting the band back together (sans Keller) over the following two decades.

Keller disappeared from the rock scene altogether, landing a job as the director of preeminent classical composer Philip Glass’ publishing company, Dunvagen Music Publishers.

“I got married and I got a job because I wasn’t making any money as a musician,” Keller said after the May 2 show. “So I had to try to do something else to make a living, which is what I did.”

In 2008, Keller returned to the studio to record his first solo album, “Sunshine in My Pocket,” a mostly acoustic-based collection of heartland rock songs. Last fall’s sophomore album, “Soul Candy,” suggests a more conscious return to the soul influences hinted at in Keller’s best Tommy Tutone compositions.

“About seven years ago—and my daughter always hates it when I say this—I began playing again, because I was not happy, and I had to force myself, because I was so far away from it,” Keller said. “Over the course of about three years I started writing again, and then pulling players in, and slowly over the course of the years found guys that I adore and we have a mutual admiration and then went in the studio.”

Keller’s Wednesday night gig at The Monkey House was part of a three-day Northeast swing for the New Jersey native that also included a flood benefit concert in Londonderry, Vt. and a show at Valentines Music Hall and Beer Joint in Albany, N.Y.

Flanked by a quintessential six-piece bar band (rhythm guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, trumpet, saxophone), Keller steamrolled through a set of originals, punctuated by an impromptu rockabilly version of the blues standard “Mystery Train” for the mixed crowd of middle-aged fans and college students who weren’t born when “Jenny” ruled the airwaves.

“I really like his voice,” said Katie Barton, a freshman at the University of Vermont. “It’s like a combination of Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and John Mayer.”

Keller laughed when asked about the vocal comparisons after the show.

“Maybe the Springsteen part,” he said.

In fact, there were several Springsteen allusions during the set, from Keller quoting the opening of The Boss’ “Jungleland” (“The rangers had a homecoming…”) when noticing a New York Rangers game playing on the bar television, to the Keller song “Giving It Up to Love,” which references Springsteen’s 1978 masterpiece in the line “Darkness on the edge of town, where the sky’s black as coal.”

The Springsteen links don’t end there.

Consciously or not, “Julianne,” Keller’s finest composition of his solo career, contains musical echoes of the Springsteen/Steven Van Zandt song “Little Girl So Fine,” from the second Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes album (the most durable of the Jersey Shore bar bands), while ironically, a minor controversy ensued when the opening riff of Springsteen’s 2007 hit “Radio Nowhere” was noted for bearing an uncanny similarity to “Jenny” (“The kids do need braces, so maybe I will (sue),” Tommy Heath joked at the time).

Keller, for his part, suggested that “Jenny” has become part of the public domain.

“‘Jenny’ … I don’t own it anymore. Playing ‘Jenny’ is like playing ‘Louie Louie’ or something,” Keller said. “It’s a great bar band song. I dare anyone to screw that song up; you can’t. Everybody sounds good with that song.”

Following the performance of “Mystery Train,” which momentarily transformed the dimly lit Winooski watering hole into a rollicking Memphis juke joint, Keller stepped down from the stage. He was quickly back.

“I promised I’d do it, so I will,” he said, before launching into the instantly recognizable guitar riff that took “Jenny” to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1982.

But far from treating the song as a faded relic or an obligatory chore, Keller and his bandmates stretched it out past its tight pop single format into an extended jam which suggested that like all great songs, its appeal is timeless and its permutations endless.

After the show, the 58-year-old Keller, dressed in jeans and a sports coat with horn-rimmed glasses and a fedora, went to the bar for a drink and mingled with patrons with the casual ease of a day laborer stopping by the local saloon for a quick belt after work.

Then he and several band members packed into a mid-size sedan parked outside the bar and headed off into the Winooski night.

Donate Life team runs marathon to spread organ donation awareness

By Luke Baynes

Observer staff

‘Spare Parts’ relay team members (left to right): Trish Thompson, Dawn Bissonette, Chris Chiarello, Dr. Antonio Di Carlo and Bella Carter. Not shown is Williston resident Michelle Pierce, who filled in for the injured Chiarello and ran anchor for the team at the 24th annual KeyBank Vermont City Marathon & Relay on May 27. (Courtesy photo)

It wasn’t just the neon green Donate Life Vermont T-shirts that made “Spare Parts” unique among the 1,443 relay teams that participated in the 24th annual KeyBank Vermont City Marathon & Relay on Sunday.

It was also what the shirts represented.

The five members of the Spare Parts relay team and their injured captain have all had their lives shaped by organ donation.

Michelle Pierce is a living kidney donor.

Trish Thompson is a liver recipient.

Bella Carter, a cross-country runner at Enosburg Falls High School, is the niece of a woman whose heart, liver, kidneys and corneas were donated after she died in a car accident.

Dr. Antonio Di Carlo is the medical director of transplant services at Fletcher Allen Health Care.

Dawn Bissonette received a lifesaving kidney transplant 38 years ago.

And team captain Chris Chiarello, who was forced to sit out the race due to plantar fasciitis, is celebrating 20 years as a liver and pancreas recipient.

Chiarello said he was happy to step aside for Pierce, a Williston resident who donated a kidney to fellow Willistonian Stephanie Fraser four years ago.

“When I had a chance to put someone who is a living kidney donor on the team, that made a lot more sense than having three recipients out there,” said Chiarello.

Pierce said she and her teammates were pleased with their results on the warm and sunny day in downtown Burlington.

“We did a lot better than we thought we were going to do,” said Pierce of the team’s time of 4 hours, 17 minutes, 48 seconds. “I think we all had anticipated that we were going to be closer to the five-hour mark. I think we were all amped up by the adrenaline and the crowd.”

Chiarello said the team’s performance had nothing to do with his pre-race pep talk.

“I said, ‘Take as long as you want. The longer we’re out there, the longer we’re spreading the word,’” he joked.

As their T-shirts announced, the Spare Parts team ran on behalf of Donate Life Vermont, a social initiative sponsored by the Center for Donation & Transplant, whose mission is to “bring awareness and education to the Vermont communities about the importance and need for organ donors while providing the tools to take action.”

Di Carlo, affectionately known as “Kidney Tony” among his teammates for the many kidney transplant operations he has performed, noted in a press release that the goal of the weekend was to spread awareness of organ and tissue donation and to hopefully save lives.

“We want to help create awareness and promote an important issue at this community event, one in which Vermont has made great progress recently,” Di Carlo said in the release. “Hopefully, we can inspire some of the attendees and runners to make a decision that could positively impact someone’s life in the future, or provide more information about organ and tissue donation that some may not be aware of.”

For more information about Donate Life Vermont, visit www.DonateLifeVT.org.