Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 54
August 10, 2009
Why We Kowtow to the Cows
The other day I was watching my daughter milk a cow. No, really.
We were at the farm barn at Shelburne Farms (say that five times fast) in Shelburne, Vermont, and there were about a dozen five-year-olds and two fifteen-year-olds there to help with the two p.m. milking of Jamaica the cow. My daughter and her friend from Maryland were the fifteen-year-olds.
Now in all fairness, my daughter has milked a cow before. She was born in Vermont and it seemed important to her mother and me that she be able to use the word "teat" without giggling. So, when she was five years old she milked a cow.
But her friend from Maryland had never milked a cow and I thought a perfect Vermont doubleheader for the two of them might be Shelburne Farms in the afternoon and Addison County Fair and Field Days at night. Cows and carnies, farm barns and Ferris wheels. Piglets, funnel cakes, and tractor pulls the state in all its glory.
We arrived at Shelburne Farms a little after noon, which was just in time for the girls to befriend a chicken and see how many different kinds of poop they could name. Of all the exhibits at Shelburne Farms, that has to be one of my favorites. They got to pet Deering, a baby calf, and they learned that every single day a cow eats the equivalent of all the grass that has ever grown at Fenway Park. Okay, that's an exaggeration. But they learned that cows eat a lot of grass and drink a lot of water. A cow drinks 35 gallons of water a day, and we all got to see Jamaica pee for about an hour (again, hyperbole; it was probably only half an hour).
"How do we know Jamaica is female?" asked the Shelburne Farms staffer who was going to help the kids milk the animal.
"Because her last name ends in the letter 'A'!" shouted an idiotic middle-aged dad who shall remain nameless.
The farmhand corrected me er, him. He corrected him.
My daughter and her friend waited until the five-year-olds had milked Jamaica and then took their turns. They took their work seriously and never once smirked when they heard the word "teat."
Then we were off to Field Days. I love Field Days. I love the Champlain Valley Fair, too. I love any place where fried dough is a food group and there are six-ton rides that are assembled on the fly and will hurl people forty and fifty feet in the air. This year's Field Days was especially fun because the weather cooperated the day that I went, unlike last year when I spent most of my time in the cow palace watching it rain and wondering whether my car had sunk so deep in the mud that it would have to become an exhibit sort of like Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Tex., a sculpture of cars cemented forever into the earth.
I showed some restraint at the Field Days sugarhouse this year and limited myself to a piece of maple cake, a maple doughnut, and a maple creemee. In other words, I did not have a maple milkshake. Then I joined my daughter and her friend for fried onion rings and my first ever fried Oreo. It was all spectacular.
My daughter's pal, who may be a budding sociologist, noted how the young women were more likely to wear revealing tube tops at the carnival midway than in the children's barnyard, where they seemed to be wearing appropriate T-shirts and flannel tops. I explained to her this was because there were baby animals present.
It's easy to take the Green Mountains for granted. But a day spent at Shelburne Farms and Field Days reminded me of what a remarkable little world Vermont is. Sometimes, we just have to see it through someone else's eyes.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on August 9, 2009.)
We were at the farm barn at Shelburne Farms (say that five times fast) in Shelburne, Vermont, and there were about a dozen five-year-olds and two fifteen-year-olds there to help with the two p.m. milking of Jamaica the cow. My daughter and her friend from Maryland were the fifteen-year-olds.
Now in all fairness, my daughter has milked a cow before. She was born in Vermont and it seemed important to her mother and me that she be able to use the word "teat" without giggling. So, when she was five years old she milked a cow.
But her friend from Maryland had never milked a cow and I thought a perfect Vermont doubleheader for the two of them might be Shelburne Farms in the afternoon and Addison County Fair and Field Days at night. Cows and carnies, farm barns and Ferris wheels. Piglets, funnel cakes, and tractor pulls the state in all its glory.
We arrived at Shelburne Farms a little after noon, which was just in time for the girls to befriend a chicken and see how many different kinds of poop they could name. Of all the exhibits at Shelburne Farms, that has to be one of my favorites. They got to pet Deering, a baby calf, and they learned that every single day a cow eats the equivalent of all the grass that has ever grown at Fenway Park. Okay, that's an exaggeration. But they learned that cows eat a lot of grass and drink a lot of water. A cow drinks 35 gallons of water a day, and we all got to see Jamaica pee for about an hour (again, hyperbole; it was probably only half an hour).
"How do we know Jamaica is female?" asked the Shelburne Farms staffer who was going to help the kids milk the animal.
"Because her last name ends in the letter 'A'!" shouted an idiotic middle-aged dad who shall remain nameless.
The farmhand corrected me er, him. He corrected him.
My daughter and her friend waited until the five-year-olds had milked Jamaica and then took their turns. They took their work seriously and never once smirked when they heard the word "teat."
Then we were off to Field Days. I love Field Days. I love the Champlain Valley Fair, too. I love any place where fried dough is a food group and there are six-ton rides that are assembled on the fly and will hurl people forty and fifty feet in the air. This year's Field Days was especially fun because the weather cooperated the day that I went, unlike last year when I spent most of my time in the cow palace watching it rain and wondering whether my car had sunk so deep in the mud that it would have to become an exhibit sort of like Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Tex., a sculpture of cars cemented forever into the earth.
I showed some restraint at the Field Days sugarhouse this year and limited myself to a piece of maple cake, a maple doughnut, and a maple creemee. In other words, I did not have a maple milkshake. Then I joined my daughter and her friend for fried onion rings and my first ever fried Oreo. It was all spectacular.
My daughter's pal, who may be a budding sociologist, noted how the young women were more likely to wear revealing tube tops at the carnival midway than in the children's barnyard, where they seemed to be wearing appropriate T-shirts and flannel tops. I explained to her this was because there were baby animals present.
It's easy to take the Green Mountains for granted. But a day spent at Shelburne Farms and Field Days reminded me of what a remarkable little world Vermont is. Sometimes, we just have to see it through someone else's eyes.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on August 9, 2009.)
July 26, 2009
On the Road Again
The other day when I was getting the mail at the end of my driveway in Lincoln, a nice couple in a car with Tennessee license plates asked me if there was a Wal-Mart or a Costco in town. I recommended the Lincoln General Store and said that was about as close as we got to a Wal-Mart or a Costco. I was pretty sure that the store's Krista Jones had just baked maple scones, and so even though the emporium lacked the inventory of a Wal-Mart or a Costco, it was worth stopping by.
In the summer we get a fair number of travelers like this in Lincoln. The Lincoln Gap is open and so motorists pass through the town as they're traveling between Bristol and Warren. Sometimes they're a little lost, sometimes they just want to see if the switchbacks on the Gap are as terrifying as they've heard. In the winter, when the Gap is closed because no one in their right mind would try to plow it, the visitors are fewer and farther between: You really can't get anywhere from here.
But I love the strangers we get in the summer. I asked Vaneasa Stearns, the store's owner, about the folks who pass through this time of the year, and she said the questions range from the site of a good place to fish to the location of the nearest supermarket. (Lincoln has plenty of the former, but you have to drive to Bristol for the latter.) As I've strolled around town I've been asked the distance to the Ben & Jerry's Factory (far), is it possible to get to Middlebury's Bread Loaf campus from here (yes), and whether they're anywhere near Lake Placid (depends on what a person means by "anywhere near").
The truth is that I have enormous respect for travelers who drive through a place like Lincoln on a lark. They see the dot on the map and here they are. My wife is very much like these intrepid souls. She's a photographer and her idea of the perfect vacation involves a car, a camera, and thousands of miles of unfamiliar roads. Often she disappears like this completely alone. One time she put nearly 4,500 miles on a rented automobile all by herself in 13 days of travel across the southwest. (Just for the record, this was back in the Mesozoic period when gas was cheap and we didn't realize how badly we were degrading this great spinning gumball we call home.)
Now, traveling this way alone is not necessarily wise and it is certainly not for the faint of heart. A long time ago in a galaxy far away. . .in an era so many years distant that my wife actually rented a cell phone when she rented a car. . .she was traveling alone along a stretch of highway christened "The Loneliest Road in America" by "Life Magazine." It's Route 50, a strip of asphalt that runs east-west across Nevada and doesn't have a lot of human habitation. But she thought the high desert and decrepit remnants of old gold rush towns might provide new material. So off she went.
As the light was fading she came across a tired little motel with no cars in front of it and a bar beside it with a couple of trucks. It was, she realized, the last motel for hours and she was exhausted. So she stopped and took a room. That night she called me on her rented cell phone to tell me that she was fine, though she had pushed the bureau in the motel room in front of the door and piled a mattress from the room's second twin bed against the lone window.
Now, in reality was that town a Nevada version of Lincoln? Safe and quirky and welcoming? Or had she stumbled upon the Bates Motel? The next morning she didn't smell maple scones from the bar across the street. But she took some wonderful photographs and savored the freedom that comes with a car and a couple of days off.
There's still plenty of summer left. With any luck, I'll be able to direct some more fearless out-of-staters to Ben & Jerry's and Lake Placid.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 26, 2009.)
In the summer we get a fair number of travelers like this in Lincoln. The Lincoln Gap is open and so motorists pass through the town as they're traveling between Bristol and Warren. Sometimes they're a little lost, sometimes they just want to see if the switchbacks on the Gap are as terrifying as they've heard. In the winter, when the Gap is closed because no one in their right mind would try to plow it, the visitors are fewer and farther between: You really can't get anywhere from here.
But I love the strangers we get in the summer. I asked Vaneasa Stearns, the store's owner, about the folks who pass through this time of the year, and she said the questions range from the site of a good place to fish to the location of the nearest supermarket. (Lincoln has plenty of the former, but you have to drive to Bristol for the latter.) As I've strolled around town I've been asked the distance to the Ben & Jerry's Factory (far), is it possible to get to Middlebury's Bread Loaf campus from here (yes), and whether they're anywhere near Lake Placid (depends on what a person means by "anywhere near").
The truth is that I have enormous respect for travelers who drive through a place like Lincoln on a lark. They see the dot on the map and here they are. My wife is very much like these intrepid souls. She's a photographer and her idea of the perfect vacation involves a car, a camera, and thousands of miles of unfamiliar roads. Often she disappears like this completely alone. One time she put nearly 4,500 miles on a rented automobile all by herself in 13 days of travel across the southwest. (Just for the record, this was back in the Mesozoic period when gas was cheap and we didn't realize how badly we were degrading this great spinning gumball we call home.)
Now, traveling this way alone is not necessarily wise and it is certainly not for the faint of heart. A long time ago in a galaxy far away. . .in an era so many years distant that my wife actually rented a cell phone when she rented a car. . .she was traveling alone along a stretch of highway christened "The Loneliest Road in America" by "Life Magazine." It's Route 50, a strip of asphalt that runs east-west across Nevada and doesn't have a lot of human habitation. But she thought the high desert and decrepit remnants of old gold rush towns might provide new material. So off she went.
As the light was fading she came across a tired little motel with no cars in front of it and a bar beside it with a couple of trucks. It was, she realized, the last motel for hours and she was exhausted. So she stopped and took a room. That night she called me on her rented cell phone to tell me that she was fine, though she had pushed the bureau in the motel room in front of the door and piled a mattress from the room's second twin bed against the lone window.
Now, in reality was that town a Nevada version of Lincoln? Safe and quirky and welcoming? Or had she stumbled upon the Bates Motel? The next morning she didn't smell maple scones from the bar across the street. But she took some wonderful photographs and savored the freedom that comes with a car and a couple of days off.
There's still plenty of summer left. With any luck, I'll be able to direct some more fearless out-of-staters to Ben & Jerry's and Lake Placid.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 26, 2009.)
July 19, 2009
The Small Steps after the Giant Leap
There was an episode of the NBC sitcom "30 Rock" this past season in which Jack Donaghy, the fictional Head of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming, watches a home movie of himself as a little boy. When he's given a model of the Apollo 11 command and lunar modules as a birthday present, he's so excited that he cries out, "Apollo! Apollo!" and then vomits.
I can relate. It will be 40 years ago tomorrow that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon and poignantly drove home the magnitude of the moment: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." I recall vividly the excitement I felt as a little boy. I didn't vomit, but that's only because it was late at night and I was home. As a boy I threw up mostly in cars, airplanes, and carnival rides in which the centrifugal force of the ride would hurl the - never mind.
But the moon landing was a big deal for me. It was a big deal for all of us. Certainly it was the most stirring thing I saw on television that month and July 1969 had some exceptional TV if you were a boy my age. Eleven days earlier, on July 9, I had watched my boyhood hero, New York Mets pitcher Tom Seaver, toss a perfect game for eight and one-third innings against the evil empire out of Chicago: The Cubs. A rookie named Jimmy Qualls broke up the perfect game with a single in the Cubs' last at bat.
This is how much the world has changed in the last four decades: The Cubs are an icon of fallibility, the baseball team that has gone the longest without winning a World Series, and the idea of space travel leaves us yawning. No little boy in 2009 is so energized by the space shuttle that he is going to scream and then vomit.
And yet the space shuttle is an astonishing accomplishment. Right now the Endeavour is high in the skies above us. This is the 127th space shuttle flight and the 29th to the space station. My sense is if we were told in 1969 what we would be accomplishing in 2009, we would have been impressed. Sure, someone would have insisted that he would only be excited enough to vomit if we had landed on Mars by now. There would be some "Star Trek" wise guy who would want to know why we hadn't yet frozen Ricardo Montalban - a.k.a., Khan - after the eugenics wars of the 1990s and sent him into exile in space for Kirk and Spock and Kirstie Alley as the inexplicably androgynous Vulcan Saavik to find him.
But by any objective measure the space shuttle is a remarkable achievement. The astronauts and scientists who fly it and walk in space - women and men like mission specialists Dave Wolf and Tim Kopra - know well they are risking their lives in the interest of exploration and scientific advancement.
The issue may be that we have done so much that we take the program for granted. We're jaded. Our attention turns to the shuttle only when there is a cataclysmic failure. In that regard, it's a bit like commercial aviation. We notice the accidents, not the miracle that tens of millions of people fly every year.
Moreover, it may be that not only are we more jaded, we're more cynical. And, yes, more juvenile. We spend more time keeping up with Lindsay Lohan than we do following Julie Payette. Who, you ask, is Julie Payette? Julie is a Montreal resident and mother of two, a pianist, and a mission specialist on the space shuttle orbiting the earth this very moment. This is her second time in space.
My sense is that eventually we will walk on Mars. In the meantime, I will celebrate the feat of Apollo 11 four decades ago and the 127 flights - to date - of our fleet of space shuttles. Some steps may be more giant than others, but when we next have a triumph to rival the lunar landing, it will have taken all of those small footprints to get there.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 19, 2009.)
I can relate. It will be 40 years ago tomorrow that Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon and poignantly drove home the magnitude of the moment: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." I recall vividly the excitement I felt as a little boy. I didn't vomit, but that's only because it was late at night and I was home. As a boy I threw up mostly in cars, airplanes, and carnival rides in which the centrifugal force of the ride would hurl the - never mind.
But the moon landing was a big deal for me. It was a big deal for all of us. Certainly it was the most stirring thing I saw on television that month and July 1969 had some exceptional TV if you were a boy my age. Eleven days earlier, on July 9, I had watched my boyhood hero, New York Mets pitcher Tom Seaver, toss a perfect game for eight and one-third innings against the evil empire out of Chicago: The Cubs. A rookie named Jimmy Qualls broke up the perfect game with a single in the Cubs' last at bat.
This is how much the world has changed in the last four decades: The Cubs are an icon of fallibility, the baseball team that has gone the longest without winning a World Series, and the idea of space travel leaves us yawning. No little boy in 2009 is so energized by the space shuttle that he is going to scream and then vomit.
And yet the space shuttle is an astonishing accomplishment. Right now the Endeavour is high in the skies above us. This is the 127th space shuttle flight and the 29th to the space station. My sense is if we were told in 1969 what we would be accomplishing in 2009, we would have been impressed. Sure, someone would have insisted that he would only be excited enough to vomit if we had landed on Mars by now. There would be some "Star Trek" wise guy who would want to know why we hadn't yet frozen Ricardo Montalban - a.k.a., Khan - after the eugenics wars of the 1990s and sent him into exile in space for Kirk and Spock and Kirstie Alley as the inexplicably androgynous Vulcan Saavik to find him.
But by any objective measure the space shuttle is a remarkable achievement. The astronauts and scientists who fly it and walk in space - women and men like mission specialists Dave Wolf and Tim Kopra - know well they are risking their lives in the interest of exploration and scientific advancement.
The issue may be that we have done so much that we take the program for granted. We're jaded. Our attention turns to the shuttle only when there is a cataclysmic failure. In that regard, it's a bit like commercial aviation. We notice the accidents, not the miracle that tens of millions of people fly every year.
Moreover, it may be that not only are we more jaded, we're more cynical. And, yes, more juvenile. We spend more time keeping up with Lindsay Lohan than we do following Julie Payette. Who, you ask, is Julie Payette? Julie is a Montreal resident and mother of two, a pianist, and a mission specialist on the space shuttle orbiting the earth this very moment. This is her second time in space.
My sense is that eventually we will walk on Mars. In the meantime, I will celebrate the feat of Apollo 11 four decades ago and the 127 flights - to date - of our fleet of space shuttles. Some steps may be more giant than others, but when we next have a triumph to rival the lunar landing, it will have taken all of those small footprints to get there.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 19, 2009.)
July 12, 2009
On Top of the World (and Sweaty)
The other day, I was sitting at the paved summit of Lincoln Gap, sipping from my water bottle and feeling mighty proud of myself because I had just biked up there. I always feel like an ad for Gatorade when I reach the crest of the road on my bike. Without wanting to share more information than you need, I probably look like I have just emerged from a swimming pool.
Quickly I was humbled. Four men, including two who were roughly my age, coasted the last 20 yards into the parking area and came to a stop where I was sitting against a tree. They had just biked up the gap, too. In fact it was the third gap they had conquered that day and they said they had three more to go. They were biking the Brandon Gap, the Middlebury Gap, the Lincoln Gap, the Appalachian Gap, the Roxbury Gap and the Rochester Gap. I am always impressed when I meet riders conquering the six gaps. I'm not sure I could drive six gaps in a day. The odds of my someday biking them all between sunrise and sunset are only slightly better than my being asked by the Red Sox to join their starting pitching rotation or waking up one morning and discovering that I have Alec Baldwin's hair. I have never in my life biked more than two gaps in a day.
And so I told the bicyclists that I'd need a Sherpa with oxygen tanks beside me, as if I were trying to reach the peak of Mount Everest, to bike the six gaps.
Serious cyclists always impress the heck out of me, in much the same way that marathon runners do. I am especially awed when the bicyclists have some lines on their faces and a little gray in their hair. I loved the story last month of the 80-year-old female bicyclist in Buerstadt, Germany. She was riding her bike through town and a 41-year-old bicyclist rode up beside her and stole her handbag from her basket. She pedaled after him as fast as she could, and when she couldn't keep up she asked a driver to continue the chase. The driver did and the woman got her handbag back.
I don't know which part of this story I like more: An 80-year-old woman still biking around town or the image of her riding fast and hard after the thief who has stolen her purse. My mother-in-law, who is now close to 80, still bikes around Manhattan's Central Park, but she is an imperfect role model: She refuses to wear a helmet because she doesn't like what a helmet does to her hair. (This has, for obvious reasons, never been an issue in my locks-challenged life).
I hope I'm still biking in 3½ decades. Good Lord, I hope I'm still standing in 3½ decades. Biking the Lincoln and Appalachian gaps is one of the most satisfying things I do with my life. The sad truth is that I was a pretty terrible athlete as a boy. I worked hard, but invariably I was among the last kids chosen for kickball in elementary school and the last boy in my circle to make the "majors" in our town's Little League (One year I actually made the Little League all-star team as a pitcher and proceeded to allow something like 18 runs in my stint on the mound).
I was mediocre on the swim and diving teams, and the only way I was going to get off the bench on the high school football team was if a bus accident en route to an away game resulted in about 40 broken legs. Even when rain turned the football field to a swamp, the white pants of my uniform were blindingly clean.
And so I have no intention of giving up biking until my knees or my heart make me. I may not be a six-gapper. But I still savor the view from the summit.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 12, 2009.)
Quickly I was humbled. Four men, including two who were roughly my age, coasted the last 20 yards into the parking area and came to a stop where I was sitting against a tree. They had just biked up the gap, too. In fact it was the third gap they had conquered that day and they said they had three more to go. They were biking the Brandon Gap, the Middlebury Gap, the Lincoln Gap, the Appalachian Gap, the Roxbury Gap and the Rochester Gap. I am always impressed when I meet riders conquering the six gaps. I'm not sure I could drive six gaps in a day. The odds of my someday biking them all between sunrise and sunset are only slightly better than my being asked by the Red Sox to join their starting pitching rotation or waking up one morning and discovering that I have Alec Baldwin's hair. I have never in my life biked more than two gaps in a day.
And so I told the bicyclists that I'd need a Sherpa with oxygen tanks beside me, as if I were trying to reach the peak of Mount Everest, to bike the six gaps.
Serious cyclists always impress the heck out of me, in much the same way that marathon runners do. I am especially awed when the bicyclists have some lines on their faces and a little gray in their hair. I loved the story last month of the 80-year-old female bicyclist in Buerstadt, Germany. She was riding her bike through town and a 41-year-old bicyclist rode up beside her and stole her handbag from her basket. She pedaled after him as fast as she could, and when she couldn't keep up she asked a driver to continue the chase. The driver did and the woman got her handbag back.
I don't know which part of this story I like more: An 80-year-old woman still biking around town or the image of her riding fast and hard after the thief who has stolen her purse. My mother-in-law, who is now close to 80, still bikes around Manhattan's Central Park, but she is an imperfect role model: She refuses to wear a helmet because she doesn't like what a helmet does to her hair. (This has, for obvious reasons, never been an issue in my locks-challenged life).
I hope I'm still biking in 3½ decades. Good Lord, I hope I'm still standing in 3½ decades. Biking the Lincoln and Appalachian gaps is one of the most satisfying things I do with my life. The sad truth is that I was a pretty terrible athlete as a boy. I worked hard, but invariably I was among the last kids chosen for kickball in elementary school and the last boy in my circle to make the "majors" in our town's Little League (One year I actually made the Little League all-star team as a pitcher and proceeded to allow something like 18 runs in my stint on the mound).
I was mediocre on the swim and diving teams, and the only way I was going to get off the bench on the high school football team was if a bus accident en route to an away game resulted in about 40 broken legs. Even when rain turned the football field to a swamp, the white pants of my uniform were blindingly clean.
And so I have no intention of giving up biking until my knees or my heart make me. I may not be a six-gapper. But I still savor the view from the summit.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 12, 2009.)
July 5, 2009
July 4th Babies Born with a Bang
So, it's a pleasant Fourth of July afternoon in 1949 in the iconic Midwestern town of Hudson, Ohio -- home of the American Fireworks Co. -- and the community is having a picnic.
Marjorie Danforth, nine months pregnant, sits down beside two other women on a bench. They chat. They gossip. They smile. Then the other two women stand up at the exact same time, causing Marjorie's side of the bench to drop like a see-saw, and the pregnant woman is unceremoniously deposited on the ground. Literally topples over like a cartoon. And, inevitably, goes into labor. Hours later a baby boy named Fred arrives -- a young lad cantilevered from womb to world on the Fourth of July.
Like most people born on the Fourth of July, Fred recalls presuming as a little boy that the spectacular pyrotechnics he saw in the sky were for his benefit. Then, when he understood they had absolutely nothing to do with him, he felt that his own personal thunder had been commandeered. "Wait a minute," he recalls thinking, "It's my day!" Moreover, because of the local presence of the American Fireworks Co., Hudson, Ohio, really did have spectacular, big-city-quality peonies, willows and palms.
Later Fred would found Danforth Pewter in Vermont with his wife, Judi. He doesn't see a conscious connection between the company's popular star and twilight patterns -- a bright yellow star with a fireworks tail against a nighttime blue sky -- on some of their pewter barrettes and cheese knives and the traditional Fourth of July festivities, but art has to come from somewhere. You just never know.
And there is something a little magical about being born on the Fourth of July. American president and Vermont native son Calvin Coolidge was born on the day. Three American Presidents died on the anniversary: James Monroe in 1831 and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1826. (Yes, they died on the same day. Sort of like Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. It was a bonanza for the 1826 issue of People magazine.)
Fred Herbolzheimer and Janet Rood of Shelburne, husband and wife, were also born on the Fourth of July. Their tale has a special penumbra of enchantment about it. They were born in 1921, Fred at 10 a.m. and Janet at 10 p.m. And they were born right next door to each other in Wakefield, Mass., and some days would even share a baby carriage. Janet's father died when she was 10 months old, however, and so she would be raised in Vermont and it would be years before she and Fred would find each other again. They wouldn't wed until 2000, after decades of marriage to other people.
But just like Fred Danforth, she and her husband grew up believing the fireworks were for them. "My grandfather would take me to L.P. Woods, a sporting goods store in Burlington where Fremeau Jewelers is now, and he would give me a paper bag and tell me to pick out whatever fireworks I wanted," she remembers.
And yet once she was grown, Janet began to savor the notion that the celebration wasn't necessarily about her. Fred Danforth expressed a similar sentiment: "I am constantly surrounded by large numbers of people on the day and I am not the center of attention -- and I am very comfortable with that."
Moreover, there is at least one other benefit to being born on July Fourth. "I've never had to work on my birthday," observed Sherry Morrison, who was born on the holiday in 1975. "It leads me to believe that everyone should have their birthdays off -- and be paid!"
Sure, some babies arrive more dramatically than others, but it seems to me that any baby born on the 4th arrives with a bang. Happy birthday to everyone who is celebrating this weekend.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 5, 2009.)
Marjorie Danforth, nine months pregnant, sits down beside two other women on a bench. They chat. They gossip. They smile. Then the other two women stand up at the exact same time, causing Marjorie's side of the bench to drop like a see-saw, and the pregnant woman is unceremoniously deposited on the ground. Literally topples over like a cartoon. And, inevitably, goes into labor. Hours later a baby boy named Fred arrives -- a young lad cantilevered from womb to world on the Fourth of July.
Like most people born on the Fourth of July, Fred recalls presuming as a little boy that the spectacular pyrotechnics he saw in the sky were for his benefit. Then, when he understood they had absolutely nothing to do with him, he felt that his own personal thunder had been commandeered. "Wait a minute," he recalls thinking, "It's my day!" Moreover, because of the local presence of the American Fireworks Co., Hudson, Ohio, really did have spectacular, big-city-quality peonies, willows and palms.
Later Fred would found Danforth Pewter in Vermont with his wife, Judi. He doesn't see a conscious connection between the company's popular star and twilight patterns -- a bright yellow star with a fireworks tail against a nighttime blue sky -- on some of their pewter barrettes and cheese knives and the traditional Fourth of July festivities, but art has to come from somewhere. You just never know.
And there is something a little magical about being born on the Fourth of July. American president and Vermont native son Calvin Coolidge was born on the day. Three American Presidents died on the anniversary: James Monroe in 1831 and John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1826. (Yes, they died on the same day. Sort of like Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. It was a bonanza for the 1826 issue of People magazine.)
Fred Herbolzheimer and Janet Rood of Shelburne, husband and wife, were also born on the Fourth of July. Their tale has a special penumbra of enchantment about it. They were born in 1921, Fred at 10 a.m. and Janet at 10 p.m. And they were born right next door to each other in Wakefield, Mass., and some days would even share a baby carriage. Janet's father died when she was 10 months old, however, and so she would be raised in Vermont and it would be years before she and Fred would find each other again. They wouldn't wed until 2000, after decades of marriage to other people.
But just like Fred Danforth, she and her husband grew up believing the fireworks were for them. "My grandfather would take me to L.P. Woods, a sporting goods store in Burlington where Fremeau Jewelers is now, and he would give me a paper bag and tell me to pick out whatever fireworks I wanted," she remembers.
And yet once she was grown, Janet began to savor the notion that the celebration wasn't necessarily about her. Fred Danforth expressed a similar sentiment: "I am constantly surrounded by large numbers of people on the day and I am not the center of attention -- and I am very comfortable with that."
Moreover, there is at least one other benefit to being born on July Fourth. "I've never had to work on my birthday," observed Sherry Morrison, who was born on the holiday in 1975. "It leads me to believe that everyone should have their birthdays off -- and be paid!"
Sure, some babies arrive more dramatically than others, but it seems to me that any baby born on the 4th arrives with a bang. Happy birthday to everyone who is celebrating this weekend.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on July 5, 2009.)
July 2, 2009
Secrets of Eden -- coming in February 2010
My next novel, "Secrets of Eden," will be published on February 2, 2010.
Here is how the Random House catalog describes it:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A novel of shattered family ties, intimate secrets, and the nature of sacrifice, Secrets of Eden is written with Chris Bohjalian's trademark compassion and explosive revelations.
"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, going home to the husband who will kill her that evening before turning the gun upon himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . .angels. Heather survived a childhood in which her father murdered her mother and then took his own life. Stephen flees the pulpit to be with her and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him. But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself - and Alice herself had secrets that only her minister knew. Secrets of Eden shows how guilt can often overshadow truth and how morally ambiguous a life really can be.
The novel will be a Lifetime movie and foreign rights have already been sold in the United Kingdom.
To see the final cover or preorder a copy, visit
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/di...
.
Here is how the Random House catalog describes it:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A novel of shattered family ties, intimate secrets, and the nature of sacrifice, Secrets of Eden is written with Chris Bohjalian's trademark compassion and explosive revelations.
"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, going home to the husband who will kill her that evening before turning the gun upon himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . .angels. Heather survived a childhood in which her father murdered her mother and then took his own life. Stephen flees the pulpit to be with her and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him. But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself - and Alice herself had secrets that only her minister knew. Secrets of Eden shows how guilt can often overshadow truth and how morally ambiguous a life really can be.
The novel will be a Lifetime movie and foreign rights have already been sold in the United Kingdom.
To see the final cover or preorder a copy, visit
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/di...
.
June 28, 2009
Sammy D's Most Excellent Adventure
The other day my wife shared with me a short biography of Samuel de Champlain that her mother-in-law found, Louise Hall Tharp's "Champlain: Northwest Voyager." It's a small, dusty, hardcover first edition from 1944 aimed at young readers from a very different era.
To wit, the young mapmaker and aspiring explorer says things like, "I'm fourteen, but I'd pass for more, and I'm strong as a man," or "You're a good chap, Dan -- and I'd like to be going with you. You and I would find out all about the river, and the savages, too," or (my personal favorite) "Do I have to study Ptolemy in Greek, Father?"
I also enjoyed Tharp's take on that moment 400 summers ago when Champlain sees for the first tme the lake that all of us who live in Vermont or upstate New York take for granted:
"Then one morning the river came to an end. Just ahead was a wide opening in the forest trees, and Champlain found himself facing a beautiful lake. The blue waters stretched on and on, till they were lost in mist, while on every side were delightful little islands covered with trees. 'The savages told me -- ' breathed Champlain -- 'but I did not believe there could be such a lovely lake in the world!'
"Dan and Eustace smiled at each other over their leader's boyish enthusiasm. 'This shall be called Lake Champlain,' they cried."
Yup. I'm confident it happened just like that.
And, of course, when Champlain meets some "savages" who aren't especially accommodating he simply gets out his arquebus -- a muzzle-loaded firearm: "Sam had loaded his arquebus with four bullets, and he killed two men and wounded another with a single shot." One shot, three downed savages. That was Sam.
I read a lot of biographies like this when I was a boy, including one of George Armstrong Custer that suggested he was a fun loving prankster and his military decisions at the Little Big Horn were nothing short of brilliant. There were a lot of "savages" in that biography, too, I suppose.
But I'm glad my mother-in-law pulled the book off her shelves in her apartment in Manhattan and loaned it to my wife. Whatever its flaws and political incorrectness, I learned more about the explorer in the hour or two I spent with the volume than I have in the two-plus decades I've lived in Vermont. And as Wendell Berry observed, "If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are."
As we celebrate the quadricentennial, I expect I will learn much more. My sense is that anyone who was willing to travel between Europe and North America as often as he did in boats that were not especially comfortable or large was both brave and ambitious. And anyone who was willing to endure Quebec City before baseboard heating and modern insulation was pretty darn hardy. Likewise, I will probably discover that Champlain had his share of character flaws and faults, too -- just like the rest of us.
Moreover, the coming weeks offer us the chance to learn about more than the cartographer and navigator. It's a chance to understand the cultures that preceded Champlain's arrival as well as the worlds that flourished long after he died. And that's one of the great gifts of a moment in time such as this. For a long and glorious summer, we can spy the lake and not simply look for Champ, the watery mascot who seems to appear these days only in cell phone videos or at Centennial Field when the Lake Monsters, our minor league baseball team, are in town. We can gaze at the mountains on both sides of the water and ask ourselves why the two sides of the lake are so different: What, perhaps, it means that on one side we savor the sunrise and on the other the sunset. We can take advantage of the myriad celebrations and events occurring throughout the region to understand the ecology and the environment -- and what we must do to preserve it.
And, just maybe, we can spend a little time with those antique books that our mothers-in-law seem to have moldering on their library shelves.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on June 28, 2009.)
To wit, the young mapmaker and aspiring explorer says things like, "I'm fourteen, but I'd pass for more, and I'm strong as a man," or "You're a good chap, Dan -- and I'd like to be going with you. You and I would find out all about the river, and the savages, too," or (my personal favorite) "Do I have to study Ptolemy in Greek, Father?"
I also enjoyed Tharp's take on that moment 400 summers ago when Champlain sees for the first tme the lake that all of us who live in Vermont or upstate New York take for granted:
"Then one morning the river came to an end. Just ahead was a wide opening in the forest trees, and Champlain found himself facing a beautiful lake. The blue waters stretched on and on, till they were lost in mist, while on every side were delightful little islands covered with trees. 'The savages told me -- ' breathed Champlain -- 'but I did not believe there could be such a lovely lake in the world!'
"Dan and Eustace smiled at each other over their leader's boyish enthusiasm. 'This shall be called Lake Champlain,' they cried."
Yup. I'm confident it happened just like that.
And, of course, when Champlain meets some "savages" who aren't especially accommodating he simply gets out his arquebus -- a muzzle-loaded firearm: "Sam had loaded his arquebus with four bullets, and he killed two men and wounded another with a single shot." One shot, three downed savages. That was Sam.
I read a lot of biographies like this when I was a boy, including one of George Armstrong Custer that suggested he was a fun loving prankster and his military decisions at the Little Big Horn were nothing short of brilliant. There were a lot of "savages" in that biography, too, I suppose.
But I'm glad my mother-in-law pulled the book off her shelves in her apartment in Manhattan and loaned it to my wife. Whatever its flaws and political incorrectness, I learned more about the explorer in the hour or two I spent with the volume than I have in the two-plus decades I've lived in Vermont. And as Wendell Berry observed, "If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are."
As we celebrate the quadricentennial, I expect I will learn much more. My sense is that anyone who was willing to travel between Europe and North America as often as he did in boats that were not especially comfortable or large was both brave and ambitious. And anyone who was willing to endure Quebec City before baseboard heating and modern insulation was pretty darn hardy. Likewise, I will probably discover that Champlain had his share of character flaws and faults, too -- just like the rest of us.
Moreover, the coming weeks offer us the chance to learn about more than the cartographer and navigator. It's a chance to understand the cultures that preceded Champlain's arrival as well as the worlds that flourished long after he died. And that's one of the great gifts of a moment in time such as this. For a long and glorious summer, we can spy the lake and not simply look for Champ, the watery mascot who seems to appear these days only in cell phone videos or at Centennial Field when the Lake Monsters, our minor league baseball team, are in town. We can gaze at the mountains on both sides of the water and ask ourselves why the two sides of the lake are so different: What, perhaps, it means that on one side we savor the sunrise and on the other the sunset. We can take advantage of the myriad celebrations and events occurring throughout the region to understand the ecology and the environment -- and what we must do to preserve it.
And, just maybe, we can spend a little time with those antique books that our mothers-in-law seem to have moldering on their library shelves.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on June 28, 2009.)
June 23, 2009
Father knows best (or you're grounded)
One of the very first things I did when I was 16 years old and had gotten my driver's license was to take my parents' Ford Maverick and back it out of our driveway and into the catering truck that was parked across the street. I had had my driver's license about 24 hours. The caterers were at that moment in our kitchen.
"You backed out of our driveway and smacked into a parked car?" my father asked, his voice more incredulous than angry, when I brought him to a quiet hallway in our house to tell him what I had done. Given the crowd of guests in our living and dining rooms, I had the instinctive good sense to break the news to my dad and not my mom.
A parked truck," I corrected him. "Actually, a parked van."
"Is there any damage?"
This was when automobile manufacturers actually put solid bumpers on cars, and so while the Ford Maverick wasn't exactly a Sherman tank, the side of the van looked like a spoon. "There is," I said, "but I'm sure the caterers can still drive it just fine." I think I thought I was putting a good spin on a bad situation. Then the two of us went outside and surveyed the carnage.
My father put his arm around my shoulder and said in his best Cliff Huxtable fashion, "Well, no one was hurt. That's good. Let's go tell them."
To this day I have always been grateful that he used a first person plural: Let us. He stood beside me when I went back into the kitchen to explain to the husband and wife who were catering that party that I had just put a serious ding into the side of their van.
I don't recall the details of whether the caterers put in an insurance claim or whether my parents simply paid for the dent to be repaired. But I do know that what felt like a pretty big chunk of the money I earned that August caddying at the nearby country club -- my summer job for two glorious years -- went directly to my parents. I was never grounded or punished or lost my car privilege as a result of that bit of mind-numbing negligence; I simply had to pay for what I had done.
As a matter of fact, I don't recall ever being grounded or punished by my father.
But -- and this is an important but -- he was capable of grounding a child. He grounded my older brother all the time, including something incredible like two-thirds of one July and August when my brother was 13 or 14 years old. I don't remember precisely what my brother did to start the period of solitary confinement, but it began with something minor and perhaps a mere two days home internment. But it escalated quickly as my brother kept talking back to our dad:
DAD: You want a third day, Smarty Pants? Say one more word.
BROTHER: One more word.
DAD: Fine, you're grounded three days. Want a week? Open your mouth again.
BROTHER (mouth wide open): Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
DAD: Good, you just got a week.
My brother made the most of his time indoors. He used a seven iron to practice his golf stroke in his bedroom and created a half-dozen divots in the carpet.
I mention this so you know that our father wasn't a softie. By the time I was an adolescent, he may have been too exhausted by my older brother to bother to ground me or my infractions weren't worth the nuclear option of being grounded. Or I may simply have been a better politician than my brother. Or had less spine.
In any case, I am very glad I had the father I had. My brother is, too -- even if he didn't need a whole lot of sunblock one summer long ago.
Happy Father's Day.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on June 21, 2009.)
"You backed out of our driveway and smacked into a parked car?" my father asked, his voice more incredulous than angry, when I brought him to a quiet hallway in our house to tell him what I had done. Given the crowd of guests in our living and dining rooms, I had the instinctive good sense to break the news to my dad and not my mom.
A parked truck," I corrected him. "Actually, a parked van."
"Is there any damage?"
This was when automobile manufacturers actually put solid bumpers on cars, and so while the Ford Maverick wasn't exactly a Sherman tank, the side of the van looked like a spoon. "There is," I said, "but I'm sure the caterers can still drive it just fine." I think I thought I was putting a good spin on a bad situation. Then the two of us went outside and surveyed the carnage.
My father put his arm around my shoulder and said in his best Cliff Huxtable fashion, "Well, no one was hurt. That's good. Let's go tell them."
To this day I have always been grateful that he used a first person plural: Let us. He stood beside me when I went back into the kitchen to explain to the husband and wife who were catering that party that I had just put a serious ding into the side of their van.
I don't recall the details of whether the caterers put in an insurance claim or whether my parents simply paid for the dent to be repaired. But I do know that what felt like a pretty big chunk of the money I earned that August caddying at the nearby country club -- my summer job for two glorious years -- went directly to my parents. I was never grounded or punished or lost my car privilege as a result of that bit of mind-numbing negligence; I simply had to pay for what I had done.
As a matter of fact, I don't recall ever being grounded or punished by my father.
But -- and this is an important but -- he was capable of grounding a child. He grounded my older brother all the time, including something incredible like two-thirds of one July and August when my brother was 13 or 14 years old. I don't remember precisely what my brother did to start the period of solitary confinement, but it began with something minor and perhaps a mere two days home internment. But it escalated quickly as my brother kept talking back to our dad:
DAD: You want a third day, Smarty Pants? Say one more word.
BROTHER: One more word.
DAD: Fine, you're grounded three days. Want a week? Open your mouth again.
BROTHER (mouth wide open): Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
DAD: Good, you just got a week.
My brother made the most of his time indoors. He used a seven iron to practice his golf stroke in his bedroom and created a half-dozen divots in the carpet.
I mention this so you know that our father wasn't a softie. By the time I was an adolescent, he may have been too exhausted by my older brother to bother to ground me or my infractions weren't worth the nuclear option of being grounded. Or I may simply have been a better politician than my brother. Or had less spine.
In any case, I am very glad I had the father I had. My brother is, too -- even if he didn't need a whole lot of sunblock one summer long ago.
Happy Father's Day.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on June 21, 2009.)
June 15, 2009
Omaha was no walk on the beach
June 7, 2009
Sixty-five years ago today, Middlebury's Ron Hadley was strolling down the streets of Weymouth, an English Channel port southwest of London, in his U.S. Navy's ensign uniform.
Sixty-five years ago yesterday he was skippering a 50-foot long landing craft through the rough waves at Omaha Beach on Normandy, the water around him churned high by the vast armada of boats and -- as he approached the beach -- the wind riddled with the rapid fire blasts of German 88-millimeter guns firing anti-personnel shells. He was a right flank commander of his wave of landing craft during the D-Day invasion and the eventual liberation of Europe from Hitler's Germany.
He would pilot his LCM (landing craft medium) from the troop ship to the beach twice, the first time about 6:30 in the morning and the second time close to noon. Initially, he was a part of the fifth wave of boats, but the signalman at the picket boat about 2,000 yards from shore told him to ignore the planned pace and get to the beach as quickly as possible because the G.I.s were getting slaughtered and they needed men on the beach now. And so that first time Ron reached the shore he was actually in the midst of the second and third waves.
"I had 36 combat engineers on board and when we let down the ramp the Germans had set up a cross fire across our bow. Those 36 men never made it more than a few yards from the boat. They never made it on to the beach," he recalls. When he was back at the shore five hours later with another three dozen men, the invasion had a foothold: This time his soldiers made it to the sand. On a ridge in the distance he even saw a column of German soldiers who had surrendered. Nevertheless, among the longest hours of his life were when he was ferrying that second group of soldiers to the landing site, because he couldn't help but wonder if he was bringing them all to a certain death.
I had known Ron nearly two decades before I learned what he had endured and accomplished on June 6, 1944. Like so many veterans he doesn't talk about it much. When he'd lived in Lincoln, we served together as board members on a senior citizen housing project in town. He had also been one of the leaders of the effort to raise the money to build a new library in the village. He was, as far as I knew, a retired executive who had had a successful career with AT&T, a guy from northern California who at some point had discovered Vermont and the small village we both called home. When I thought of him, I thought mostly of the hours he volunteered on behalf of the community and his gravelly, good-natured laugh.
At the time, I had no idea that he had been a part of the invasion of Normandy. Or, months later, the invasion of southern France. And in 1945 the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. "But D-Day," he recalls now, "was the most startling, the most dramatic, the most horrible -- and the most memorable."
As soon as he had graduated from San Jose State University in 1943, he would go east to the Columbia University Midshipman School. He would train there, then in Norfolk, Va., and finally at Loch Long in Scotland.
He still has the slender topographic map he used that morning 65 years ago: The elevation of the hills just beyond the beach, the church steeple that was one of his key landmarks. He has been back to the American cemetery on the bluff overlooking the beach. He's 87 now, a part of that greatest generation, and he is more comfortable discussing those experiences today than he was 10 years ago:
"It took me a long, long time before I could talk about it. But people should know what took place -- that people were giving up their lives for something that mattered. It's important that people know about that moment in history."
Indeed. And it's important that we remember people like Ron.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on June 7, 2009.)
Sixty-five years ago today, Middlebury's Ron Hadley was strolling down the streets of Weymouth, an English Channel port southwest of London, in his U.S. Navy's ensign uniform.
Sixty-five years ago yesterday he was skippering a 50-foot long landing craft through the rough waves at Omaha Beach on Normandy, the water around him churned high by the vast armada of boats and -- as he approached the beach -- the wind riddled with the rapid fire blasts of German 88-millimeter guns firing anti-personnel shells. He was a right flank commander of his wave of landing craft during the D-Day invasion and the eventual liberation of Europe from Hitler's Germany.
He would pilot his LCM (landing craft medium) from the troop ship to the beach twice, the first time about 6:30 in the morning and the second time close to noon. Initially, he was a part of the fifth wave of boats, but the signalman at the picket boat about 2,000 yards from shore told him to ignore the planned pace and get to the beach as quickly as possible because the G.I.s were getting slaughtered and they needed men on the beach now. And so that first time Ron reached the shore he was actually in the midst of the second and third waves.
"I had 36 combat engineers on board and when we let down the ramp the Germans had set up a cross fire across our bow. Those 36 men never made it more than a few yards from the boat. They never made it on to the beach," he recalls. When he was back at the shore five hours later with another three dozen men, the invasion had a foothold: This time his soldiers made it to the sand. On a ridge in the distance he even saw a column of German soldiers who had surrendered. Nevertheless, among the longest hours of his life were when he was ferrying that second group of soldiers to the landing site, because he couldn't help but wonder if he was bringing them all to a certain death.
I had known Ron nearly two decades before I learned what he had endured and accomplished on June 6, 1944. Like so many veterans he doesn't talk about it much. When he'd lived in Lincoln, we served together as board members on a senior citizen housing project in town. He had also been one of the leaders of the effort to raise the money to build a new library in the village. He was, as far as I knew, a retired executive who had had a successful career with AT&T, a guy from northern California who at some point had discovered Vermont and the small village we both called home. When I thought of him, I thought mostly of the hours he volunteered on behalf of the community and his gravelly, good-natured laugh.
At the time, I had no idea that he had been a part of the invasion of Normandy. Or, months later, the invasion of southern France. And in 1945 the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. "But D-Day," he recalls now, "was the most startling, the most dramatic, the most horrible -- and the most memorable."
As soon as he had graduated from San Jose State University in 1943, he would go east to the Columbia University Midshipman School. He would train there, then in Norfolk, Va., and finally at Loch Long in Scotland.
He still has the slender topographic map he used that morning 65 years ago: The elevation of the hills just beyond the beach, the church steeple that was one of his key landmarks. He has been back to the American cemetery on the bluff overlooking the beach. He's 87 now, a part of that greatest generation, and he is more comfortable discussing those experiences today than he was 10 years ago:
"It took me a long, long time before I could talk about it. But people should know what took place -- that people were giving up their lives for something that mattered. It's important that people know about that moment in history."
Indeed. And it's important that we remember people like Ron.
(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on June 7, 2009.)
