Letter from Vermont

Our village of Brandon, Vermont, is home to the largest Independence Day Parade in the State of Vermont.  Besides the marching bands, the bagpipers, the antique cars and fire engines, in even-numbered years (Vermont and New Hampshire retaining that old-fashioned two-year term for governor) the parade also attracts politicians of all types, out and about among the voters.  This July the six chief candidates for governor participated – five energetic Democrats and one comparatively relaxed unopposed Republican.

The parade steps off down Park Street, which has been called “the prettiest street in Vermont” for a number of years now by those who know such things.  Brandon itself was formerly called “the drawing room of New England,” but with fewer and fewer people understanding whether that was in fact a compliment, is now alternately “unhurried, unspoiled, and unforgettable” or “the Art and Soul of Vermont” (a moniker bestowed by Governor Douglas himself, we understand).

While our inn is located outside the village at the Green Mountain National Forest, there are many houses in the village that are quite beautiful, and for some time we had admired one house in particular on Park Street.  Early last spring, we had the opportunity to buy that house for our family.  We had become rather crowded at the inn — what had been comfortable quarters for my wife, myself, and our beloved orange cat when we first came to Vermont soon enough became a bit tight, with two young daughters as well as Olya’s parents, who come for a six-month visit during the summer and fall.

Our new home is a fixer-upper to be sure, but we do love it and are grateful to God for it.  It sits squarely on the parade route, and the parade (including the politicians) passed by as we sat on the front porch and watched with friends and neighbors.  Then, after the parade ended more than an hour later, we watched again as the candidates walked by in the opposite direction to meet their cars and head off to their next event.

Our happiest moment in our still new-to-us house?  Some other time, perhaps.

Chalk it up to living on “Green Mountain Time.”  Two years have passed since our last post.  Whoops.  This is the occasion when my mother would say, “Life interrupted.”  For us, it has interrupted in several big, exciting, transformative ways since our last letter from Vermont.

But in that last post, I did allude to my favorite Frank Bunting story, which still puts a little smile on my face.  It seems Frank was a bit of an amateur actor in addition to his many other interests – a true Renaissance man.  One evening, Frank and our mutual friend Allon were dressed in full theatrical garb as medieval knights, driving along our beloved US Route 7 to the theater in Middlebury to take part in a show.  Well, US 7 is a fine Vermont road kept by “VTrans” in very good shape, and it is easy to let the car get away from you in certain places.  They were pulled over for going a bit too fast.  The officer approached the driver’s window, took one look inside at these two Knights of the Green Mountains, and became so overcome with laughter that he just waved them along without a word as he returned to his cruiser.  I can just imagine the innocent look on Frank’s face peeking out from under the visor of his suit of armor.

So what made me think to come back and compose a new letter from Vermont?  Well, yesterday was primary election day in Vermont, and the Democratic field in the governor’s contest was a crowded one, with five A-list contenders vying to succeed Middlebury’s own (Republican) Governor James Douglas as he retires after four terms.  The Democratic primary (the current Republican lieutenant governor was running without opposition for the Republican nomination) was a very close election, with the top two finishers within 200 votes of one another and the third place finisher within 700 of the winner.

And I was reminded of that sunny summer day when all five of them walked past my house.  Twice.  How did that happen?  Some other time (not such a long time this time) perhaps.

That dashing doughboy in the photo with Olya I last posted was our esteemed state representative Joe Acinapura.  Joe has been a wonderful individual to us in so many ways, encouraging Olya as she worked toward citizenship, fostering a supportive relationship with us and the inn, and generally being there for anyone who needs him.  He is a valued resource to so many of us in Brandon, and not above entertaining little Klara with hand puppets to make her smile.  So his “hello, welcome, new citizen” was especially meaningful for Olya and for me.

The “goodbye” was a little tougher on all of us.  Last week, Dick Kirby came by to tell us that “Bows ‘N’ Ivories” had lost a violinist.  Since Dick was standing right in front of me and I had eaten breakfast with Olya, I knew it must be Frank.  Frank Bunting died at his home on a Saturday morning.  I found out later he and I were Masonic brothers.  We Masons are fond of a certain aspiration from antiquity, to “live respected and die regretted.”  These words could have been written for Frank.  He was a beloved small-town attorney, and his sudden death was a shock and a loss to many.  His funeral at the church in Brandon where he and his wife were married more than 50 years ago was crowded with friends, colleagues, family, and acquaintances, all of us for a short while united as mourners.

 My fondest memory of Frank?  Some other time, perhaps.

 

The recipe for the Churchill House pancakes?  Very simple (this serves 2 or 3 people):

1 cup cottage cheese; 4 organic eggs; 4 tablespoons butter; 1/2 cup flour.

Melt butter in glass bowl in microwave.  Stir in cottage cheese.  Break eggs into mixture and incorporate.  Add flour and mix; batter will be lumpy.  Cook on lightly greased 350F griddle until bubbles break on top; turn and cook until golden both sides.  Pancakes will be tangy and creamy inside and slightly crispy outside.  Serve at once with warm Vermont maple syrup.

This season, we have been given quite the feather in our cap:  the well-known touring company Bike Vermont has selected us to host nine of their weekend bike tours this summer and fall.  We had two wonderful trips here in June and are looking forward to a fun season with these guests.  When the inn has just one couple as guests, it is special and quiet, and so serene.  When 16 or 18 bicyclists are swapping stories around the dinner tables, it is more like a house party — what fun to be around so many folks with a shared interest.  The atmosphere is more excited than is usually the case, and it’s a neat change of pace for us.

Here is a photo I took of Olya at her naturalization ceremony in May. 

Who is that fine-looking soldier whispering in my wife’s ear?  Some other time, perhaps.

More time has passed since my last letter than I intended … chalk it up to getting the inn ready for the season.  We’ve had a busy April: having a chimney taken down and a new one built in its place, as well as installing the last section remaining to complete the new roof, were two of the more visible projects.  April gave us exceptionally wonderful weather this year, very mild and dry, and good for that outdoors kind of work.  May has been cool and damp thus far, but a large bed of tulips that Olya planted last fall has come up, and the flowers should open when the sun returns to us for a bit.

The gift that Olya was given at her citizenship interview was a very lovely book called “The Citizen’s Almanac.”  It is just such a thoughtful collection of anthems, poetry, symbols, speeches, and landmark documents, enhanced with some beautiful artwork, historical photos, and very straightforward and traditional editorial comments.  This gift to my wife was so compelling to me because it is so fundamental.  You hear so much about America in decline, America divided, America disintegrating; this little book which our government gives to those who have earned citizenship, is a heartfelt testimony to America triumphant, America united, and America coming together around the shared values of her people.

We had our first guests of the season on May 1st, a young couple from New Jersey starting their inn to inn bike trip.  While the weather has not been the most dazzling, the scenery is still lush and picturesque, and the pace is still relaxing and carefree as they cycle their way from one country inn to the next.  Klara, our two-year old, and I spent some enjoyable time in the car together, singing her favorite songs as we transferred our guests’ luggage to the next inn on their itinerary while they were out riding.  Olya and I joke that it will be so nice to have our children help us at the inn when they are old enough, and this was a little practice for that day, still so far in the future.  At any rate, it gives Olya a little time alone with Agatha.

The first guests of the season on May 1st means the first breakfast of the season on May 2nd.  So how did we kick off the season?  Some other time, perhaps.

That appointment we had to keep early last week was Olya’s US citizenship test.  We have had a blessedly smooth experience with Immigration, especially since moving to Vermont.  The office in St Albans is small and easy to find, you park at the front door, it is quiet inside, and things generally run as they ought to.  Quite refreshing in comparison to our interminable days going by crowded train to the crowded JFK building in crowded Boston back when we lived in crowded Massachusetts. 

It is very easy to take for granted the quality of life here in Vermont.  All the “normal” difficulties of life in 21st century America are just not present.  The big ones and the little ones.  There is no such thing as traffic.  It’s rare to have your restaurant meal interrupted by a cellphone ringing at a nearby table.  There is no urban crime to speak of.  There’s very little urban to speak of.  The air is clean.  It’s quiet. 

Sometimes I believe Vermonters don’t fully grasp how good we’ve got it living in this sparsely populated state.  One of our repeat guests has this great line that he likes to come to ride his bicycle around Vermont because “the whole state is like a National Park.”  Which is true.  And to Vermont’s credit, most Vermonters seem to realize that the part our state plays in the American story is a unique one, the gift of stunning geography and splendid isolation, all within an easy drive of Boston and New York.  Without constant visitors from which places, Vermont as it knows itself would quickly cease to be.

So how about that visitor from Siberia and her test?  Well, of course she passed, and I am so proud of her.  Next month right here at the grade school a mile west of us, Olya will take her oath as an American citizen.  At the end of her interview, the immigration officer congratulated Olya and presented her with a gift which brought tears to my eyes.  What moved me so?  Some other time, perhaps.

I feel the need to justify our inn being closed for two months.  It isn’t that we’re unmotivated or lazy, nor that we’re poor businesspeople.  No, when we decided to close the inn temporarily, it was because we had a rather momentous event coming up: the birth of our second child.

Our first daughter, Klara Cordelia, was born at the inn a little over two years ago.  In fact, she was born in the same room that she sleeps in every night.  Our midwife, Melissa, was wonderful, and the whole experience of a home birth was just what we wanted: calm, warm, and not at all hospital-antiseptic feeling.  Olya’s labor for our first baby was about six hours, and our midwife told us then that the next labor was likely to be quicker, so we should be prepared.  Well, we knew that all in advance, but you’re never really prepared to deliver your own child with no medical assistance.  In the event, that is exactly what happened.

We closed the inn for a couple of weeks of “nesting” before Olya’s due date, and for six weeks after, to ensure that the new baby would have our full attention.  A little after 3 o’clock in the morning on her due date, Olya woke me and said “I think I am going to get into the bathtub; I am having a contraction.”  We called the midwife and asked her to come.  Our midwife unfortunately lives about 30 miles away (even in Vermont, it’s not that common a profession), and it was a snowy, slushy middle-of-the-night.  When she arrived at our door, I was able to answer her question “How is Olya doing?” with “She’s fine, and so is our new daughter.”  Agatha Grace was born at 4:15, about an hour after Olya’s first signs of contractions.

Everything was so quick, and so smooth.  And so wonderful.  Never would I purposely plan to have been the only one helping Olya deliver our baby, but I feel such a special bond toward Agatha.  For the first half-hour of her life, only the three of us were there together.  No one had touched her but us; no one had looked into her eyes except us; no one knew that she had been born save us.  It was an awesome sense of closeness.

Later that day, and in coming days, as we shared our little Agatha with family and our good news with friends, there were lots of jokes about the inn offering obstetrics vacations, childbirth while-you-relax packages, and so on.  Russians believe in newborns staying at home with only immediate family for a full month, and that was our intent with Agatha as it had been our practice with Klara.  We sheltered Agatha as best we could from bad weather, visitors with colds, and the like, but this past Tuesday we took her for her first car trip.  Her mother had an appointment so important that she could not miss it, and Agatha had to leave the shelter of home.  What could be so compelling?  Some other time, perhaps.

We’ve had quite a few visitors lately.  Yesterday, the couple who owned our house from 1982 to 1998 stopped by.  Roy and Lois are a wonderful couple who still live in town.  We went around the house with them and shared a lot of their fond memories.  Might be a good time to introduce our house, since it is such a part of our lives:

The “house” is actually an antique country inn in Vermont.  The family who built it in 1872 was named Churchill; the house is now the Churchill House Inn, and it is the reason a classically-trained Siberian violinist (Olya) came to live in a small Vermont village.  On our honeymoon, we had stayed near Bar Harbor, Maine, at a very pleasant bed and breakfast called Oceanside Meadows.  The innkeepers’ lifestyle seemed very attractive, and when I had the opportunity to change jobs, we decided we’d like to try innkeeping.  We wanted to spend more time together, and three meals a day with each other, working and living in the same house seems to qualify. 

We took a seminar for aspiring innkeepers, and followed that up with a month-long car trip around a good part of the United States, leisurely looking for the right fit.  We looked from Maine to Minnesota to Georgia and back up, and finally chose an inn just three hours from home, in Rutland County, Vermont, where my great-great-grandfather Lyman Taylor was born and raised.  We’re in our fourth year here, and it continues to be a wonderful experience. 

This year, we decided to close the inn for March and April.  And, wouldn’t you know it, we had a “walk-in” couple come to the door this afternoon looking for a room.  We rarely have walk-ins because of our out-of-town location at the Green Mountain National Forest.  We were able to send this couple (hiking around Vermont from Germany) to one of the B&Bs in the village that we knew would take care of them wonderfully.   

So why have we closed the inn for two months?  Some other time, perhaps. 

A classic small town moment around lunchtime today.  Our friend Dick Kirby dropped by unannounced in that special way of his.  Dick and his wife Debbie live a couple of miles away from us, closer to the village.  Dick is retired from the utility company, and he and Debbie raise Angora goats on their hobby farm called Kirby’s Happy Hoofers.  All of the most fashionable ladies in Brandon have a pair of Debbie’s ultra-warm mohair mittens, which they wear when walking around the village for exercise or just in the course of running their errands.  Dick brought over two very soft and very warm pairs of socks, not for a special occasion, but as a gift between friends.  This is one of those small-town kindnesses that is so common that you wouldn’t call it special, but so special that you’d never consider it common.

Dick became our friend because my wife is a classically-trained Siberian violinist.  Dick is quite an impresario with his fiddle, and he and his good friends Frank Bunting (retired lawyer, violin and vocals) and Dottie Kline (Brandon’s piano maestro, but more on that another time) have a little group they call “Bows ‘N’ Ivories.”  Their quite-elderly third violin player had recently passed away, and they were looking for a new violinist shortly after we came to Vermont.  Perhaps I might mention that their repertoire tends to show-tunes, sing-a-longs, and generally nostalgic pieces which they perform for community events like Farmer’s Markets, senior center dinners, bus tours at the village inn, and so forth.  

My wife, Olya, is a good 40 years younger than any of them and knows none of the music they play.  Growing up in the Soviet Union and studying music in a formal setting, she hadn’t really heard a lot of numbers from the Great American Songbook, had she?  Still, she was game when he asked, and she’s been performing with them for a couple of years now, broadening her musical horizons from plain old Vivaldi concerti and Tchaikovsky tone-poems towards the more intriguing Tin Pan Alley and Broadway standards that keep the audiences tapping their toes and humming along at their concerts.  Frank leads the sing-a-longs through a paper megaphone and you would absolutely swear Rudy Vallee had come back for the evening.  Once in a while, Olya gets them to try something from her music case … nothing too heavy, you realize, but Bows ‘N’ Ivories does a pretty nice Pachelbel’s Canon now.

So how did a classically-trained Siberian violinist come to live in a small Vermont village?  Some other time, perhaps … 

What a blessing to experience the first stirrings of Spring after what has been a Winter of considerable stamina here in the Green Mountains.  We thought Springtime would be a promising moment to begin our new blog.  In choosing a title, we take a page from Alistair Cooke’s celebrated “Letter from America,” which aired on the BBC from 1946 – 2004.  In fact, the first Letter from America was broadcast this very week in that first post-war Spring. 

While Spring is indeed stirring, Winter is still with us this afternoon … stubborn snowbanks couch against the house up to the dining room windows.  The air remains fresh and cold, and the woodsmoke elegantly curls up from the chimneys against the strong blue sky.  The more cautious of the local drivers keep the snowtires on their cars because “you never know:”  Jack Frost may give us one final messy storm as a remembrance to carry us through to his return in October or – dare we dream? – November.  The robins, though, are hopping all over the lawn under the feeders and the shrubs, and the brook is running high and quick, harbingers and heralds of the Spring we know must surely supplant Winter before long.

We hope to make our letter from Vermont a bit of a postcard for those who read it.  We always enjoy receiving those little carefree notes that let us know someone was thinking of us when they were on their vacation; a card not because it was Christmas, or because someone had a birthday, but simply a note to acknowledge a relationship when it wasn’t required to do so, and to share the delight of spending time in a special place.  Vermont is a special place for us, and perhaps to you, too, and we are blessed to live and work here amidst its beauty in all its changing seasons.  Thanks for reading our letter; we hope you are enjoying Springtime where you are.