Sometimes, just getting out of your comfort zone opens up whole new worlds. When I started at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont some thirty-plus years ago, the school held an orientation session for the small group of students who had come from all over the country for the two-year, hands-on international development program. The venue for the orientation was a rural campground near the school. The day after our arrival at the camp, faculty announced that we going to participate in a “Drop-Off” experience that would challenge our ability to adapt to new and unfamiliar situations. They gave us each a five dollar bill and a pack of candy Lifesavers and told us to bring along a sleeping bag if we had one. They then loaded us into a few vans and headed out into rural Vermont and neighboring New Hampshire. At various points along meandering country roads, usually at or near one of the tiny and isolated New England villages hidden throughout the mountainous countryside, the van would stop, a student’s name would be called, and the guide would say “This is such and such village, we´ll be back to pick you up at this same spot in 24 hours. Find out as much as you can about the village and find yourself a place to stay for the evening. Good luck!”
The workers at the Town Hall gave me a general overview of Weathersfield. It turned out that the town was spread out over various miles – with the town center being about 5 or 6 miles away from the Town Hall (damn New Englanders, complicating everything!). They suggested I might want to get more information at the Library, which was open one day a week (that day, luckily) at 11:00 am. True to my desire to complete the school assignment to find as much about the town as possible, I asked them who was the oldest resident in the area? They identified a 70 year old dairy farmer who lived about 5 miles up the road, and whose family had been in the area for seven generations. I´m afraid to say I don´t now remember his name, but at the time I made up my mind to hitchhike out to his place to get his impressions of the area. For convenience sake, let’s just call him Farmer Jones.
It turned out Farmer Jones was pretty well known in those parts. The person who picked me up knew exactly where he lived and filled me in with some stories about him on the way. One that stood out in my mind was from the late 1950s when the government decided to damn up the Black River to make the North Springfield Reservoir. The farmer´s seven generation old family home was located on land that was declared eminent domain for the construction of the dam. Eventually forced to leave, Jones decided that he was going to jack up the house and move it to another place. He was the last resident to move out of the area as he painstakingly mounted the hundred year old structure on a trailer, and the bulldozers were waiting at the edge of the property in order to finish their work of leveling the terrain. As he pulled away with the family home, the engineers asked him where his septic tank was located, because they had to dig it up before the land was flooded. “Nope” was his only response. They insisted, pointing out the importance of removing the tank. “Nope” he repeated. “Ain´t sayin´”. Embittered by the forced move, Jones was going to make them work for their reservoir. The engineers began digging up his property at different points for about a week or so, searching for the septic tank to no avail. They finally went back to Farmer Jones and threatened him with legal action if he did not tell them where the tank was. Jones looked at them, spat on the ground and said “Well, you know somethin´? That old house ain´t never had no septic tank.”
When I got dropped off at the Jones place, a young worker told me that Farmer Jones and his wife were at the grocery, but they wouldn´t be long and I could wait. They shortly pulled up the driveway and I explained what I was doing while helping them to take their groceries into the house. Would he be willing to take some time and tell me about the area? Jones nodded, said “Well, I don´t think I can tell you much”, and over a cup of coffee proceeded to talk my ear off for an hour or so, providing a rich history of what it was like to be a dairy farmer in southern Vermont.
I made my farewells to the Jones’ and headed back towards the Weathersfield Proctor Library in Ascutney – a solid stone structure built in the early 1900s. It turned out that this day was a celebration for the end of the library’s Summer Reading Club and the place was full of kids and adorned with balloons and a table of cookies and punch. I struck up a conversation with a woman in her mid-sixties, who was at the event taking photographs. Now this is where the wonders of the internet come into play: My memory of that time forty years ago may be good in general but, like the farmer, there is no way I was going to remember her name: at least until I did a little research with the wondrous Mister Google. And the only reason this research was successful is because Edith Fisher Hunter was a local celebrity – an award winning writer and historian who, along with her husband, published the Weathersfield Weekly from a converted barn on their 150 year old family farm. The Weekly had a circulation of around 600 subscribers and covered local human interest events and local history. When I met them, she and her husband had just returned from receiving the New England Press Association’s highest recognition, the Horace Greeley Award, for their contribution to public service journalism.
Edith appreciated the investigation that I was doing for the school program, and offered to take me out to show me the town center, located about 7 miles away from the town hall and library (I don´t think I will ever truly understand the New England governing structure.) At the end of our journey, she offered to show me the family farm and introduce me to her husband, who was in the process of printing the current Weathersfield Weekly. I watched the layout and printing process for a while, helping to load paper. I guess they eventually figured out I was not a serial killer and made a generous offer: if I would take out and beat the dust from some carpets, they would provide me dinner and place to stay for the evening; all around a pretty good deal.
The 150 year old, two story farmhouse with white painted wooden siding, gabled roof and dormer windows was immaculate. After I finished with the carpets, we had dinner, followed by Edith pulling out a number of files with stories and oral histories about the region that she had gathered over the years. As I wandered around their house, appreciating their old photographs and decorations, I was amazed to come across a framed, hand written letter from Mahatma Gandhi, directed to a distant relative of Edith!
I slept that night in a guest bedroom, on a brass bed with a goosedown mattress. At breakfast the following morning, Edith decided that I should complete my immersion into Weathersfield history by visiting a young couple who in the 70s had taken over an old family farm to carry on a hundred year old family tradition of making apple cider products. Once again, Mr. Google to the rescue in helping me to “remember” the names of the couple; Willis and Tina Wood. Edith dropped me off with an introduction and a goodbye, and I spent the morning with the Woods, helping to clean out the old wooden cider press in the barn.
The school did come back for me, and I returned to the orientation camp, where we all debriefed on our experiences with our assigned “drop off” villages. Most experiences were favorable, with only a few folks having to sleep out of doors. One of the students, a young gay black man, had declined to participate in the experiment, stating simply “Oh no, honey! I´m from ATLANTA! You are not dropping me off in some rural place where there isn´t another black face within a hundred miles!"
I think my own experience was due to an openness to go with the flow, and a genuine curiosity about people and places – something that has served me well in over thirty years of travelling and working in different locations and countries of the world. The “Drop Off” exercise comes from the glory days of the Peace Corps and has been successfully used to prepare volunteers to better face the challenges of thriving in unfamiliar situations and cultures. I for one, benefited greatly by it.
Oh, and I still had my five dollar bill and pack of Lifesavers when it was over.
The scruffy members of the World Issues Program
I was dropped in front of the Ascutney, Vermont Town Hall, which was closed until about an hour later in the morning. There was also a small library next door, closed as well. Just to add to my confusion, across the road was a sign for Weathersfield, VT. There was a restaurant on the other side of the road, so I headed there and ordered a cup of coffee, figuring to save most of my five dollar bill for later. In the restaurant, I engaged the owners, explaining what I was doing. They informed me that Ascutney was part of Weathersfield – basically what was known as a Hamlet, and that I could get more information when the Town Hall opened. They told me that if I didn´t find any place else to spend the night, I could return and sleep out behind the restaurant. They comped me the coffee so I still had intact my five dollar bill.It turned out Farmer Jones was pretty well known in those parts. The person who picked me up knew exactly where he lived and filled me in with some stories about him on the way. One that stood out in my mind was from the late 1950s when the government decided to damn up the Black River to make the North Springfield Reservoir. The farmer´s seven generation old family home was located on land that was declared eminent domain for the construction of the dam. Eventually forced to leave, Jones decided that he was going to jack up the house and move it to another place. He was the last resident to move out of the area as he painstakingly mounted the hundred year old structure on a trailer, and the bulldozers were waiting at the edge of the property in order to finish their work of leveling the terrain. As he pulled away with the family home, the engineers asked him where his septic tank was located, because they had to dig it up before the land was flooded. “Nope” was his only response. They insisted, pointing out the importance of removing the tank. “Nope” he repeated. “Ain´t sayin´”. Embittered by the forced move, Jones was going to make them work for their reservoir. The engineers began digging up his property at different points for about a week or so, searching for the septic tank to no avail. They finally went back to Farmer Jones and threatened him with legal action if he did not tell them where the tank was. Jones looked at them, spat on the ground and said “Well, you know somethin´? That old house ain´t never had no septic tank.”
When I got dropped off at the Jones place, a young worker told me that Farmer Jones and his wife were at the grocery, but they wouldn´t be long and I could wait. They shortly pulled up the driveway and I explained what I was doing while helping them to take their groceries into the house. Would he be willing to take some time and tell me about the area? Jones nodded, said “Well, I don´t think I can tell you much”, and over a cup of coffee proceeded to talk my ear off for an hour or so, providing a rich history of what it was like to be a dairy farmer in southern Vermont.
The 150 year old, two story farmhouse with white painted wooden siding, gabled roof and dormer windows was immaculate. After I finished with the carpets, we had dinner, followed by Edith pulling out a number of files with stories and oral histories about the region that she had gathered over the years. As I wandered around their house, appreciating their old photographs and decorations, I was amazed to come across a framed, hand written letter from Mahatma Gandhi, directed to a distant relative of Edith!
Willis and Tina in 2017
Around midday, I got a ride back to where I had been dropped off the day before. I went into the restaurant and over lunch recounted my adventures to the owners while waiting for the van from the school to pick me up (I was hoping). As with the coffee the previous day, the owners refused to take payment for the lunch.The school did come back for me, and I returned to the orientation camp, where we all debriefed on our experiences with our assigned “drop off” villages. Most experiences were favorable, with only a few folks having to sleep out of doors. One of the students, a young gay black man, had declined to participate in the experiment, stating simply “Oh no, honey! I´m from ATLANTA! You are not dropping me off in some rural place where there isn´t another black face within a hundred miles!"
I think my own experience was due to an openness to go with the flow, and a genuine curiosity about people and places – something that has served me well in over thirty years of travelling and working in different locations and countries of the world. The “Drop Off” exercise comes from the glory days of the Peace Corps and has been successfully used to prepare volunteers to better face the challenges of thriving in unfamiliar situations and cultures. I for one, benefited greatly by it.
Oh, and I still had my five dollar bill and pack of Lifesavers when it was over.
Comments
Post a Comment