Being Ready For Winter

            One last cut of hay, apples fall from tired trees. Leaves color and drop, a hard frost kills. The sun goes, the cows come in, a hard rain falls.

            Scholars say in northern Europe, in medieval times, in some rural communities, humans hibernated. Harvests were thin, there was no light, the bleakness could not be cut with small wood fires. So people slept, waking maybe once or twice a day to gnaw on some stale bread or sip thin soup. The darkness, the cold, the death outside, was all too much to wake for. 

            We do not hibernate in Vermont as fall fades. Yes, we drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark and pack on some insulating layers as the cold descends. We sit in the kitchen in the late afternoon and wonder if it is bedtime. We eat more. A lot more. But for many of us winter is, simply put, why we are here. 

What Is It About Good Cafés?

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio

Twin Birds

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio

Crash

We got a wake up call the other day. I’d driven to Roxbury, Vermont to watch my son Callum and some other local boys play tennis at a camp. It was supposed to be a tournament but it was really just kids and chaos. It was a luxury to be there, a break from the madness. I drove to Roxbury with my niece, Christie, visiting from England. I grew up on the other side of Roxbury Mountain, so it was fun to sit in the sun and tell boring stories about childhood.

Christie and I sat in the hot sun on the bleachers. Cal and his buddy played doubles on a far court.  Beyond the court was Route 12A and beyond that a field and then the beginnings of the Dog River. As kids we fished the Dog, and spied on this camp.

Christie is my wife’s niece – her sister’s daughter – and I’ve known her since she was eight. And now she’s thirty. She’s a teacher and I bet a good one. I bet she grades the parents.

We sat in the bleachers and talked away, sat in the sun watching the game, chatted with the sparse crowd, wished we had water. It was my birthday, a nice easy day.

When the tennis ended we collected my boy, made sure no other locals needed rides and headed back toward Montpelier on Route 12, the scenic route. We stopped at a gas station so Cal could get a snack and a drink. We wandered a bit around Northfield, a small college town between the tiny village of Roxbury and Montpelier, the capital of Vermont. I filled the car with gas. Cal came out of the station with a chocolate milk protein drink and a twix bar. We were off.

The three of us talked about tennis and Christie filled us in on her plans to maybe move to the Lake District. The Lake District is in Cumbria, in England, where Beatrix Potter lived and wrote her children’s stories. The Lake District looks about the same as it did when Potter wrote about Peter Rabbit and all the others. It is a beautiful part of England. It is now a national park. It got so crowded a few years ago they closed the county to traffic. Crazy. It would be an interesting place to live. We talked about the Lakes, her plans, what her Mum and Dad thought, where she’d live.

It was a bluebird day, not too hot, bone dry. We planned a cookout that night with a few friends. Nothing could be better.

And then a young woman heading the opposite way on Vermont Route 12 drove right into us. She was turning left into a shopping mall. She was driving a Subaru Impreza. She was right there, not ten feet in front of us. I saw the surprise on her face when she saw us, like we’d just appeared out of thin air. I turned hard right but we were so close. I don’t remember anything after that until I was out of the car.

We hit essentially head on. I saw the girl climb out of her car. She was on her hands and knees. We’d pushed her car many feet away and spun it around. I turned back toward my car, dazed, and looked for my son and niece. I felt a thick, sticky liquid on my face and arms. It was dripping off my forehead.

I turned back to my car and called to Cal. ‘Are you okay!’ I called to Christie.

The viscous stuff was on my lips so I licked it. It was sweet. And chocolaty. I saw Cal. He was out of the car too. He was covered in chocolate milk.

‘Yes, I’m good,’ he said. Christie came up and put her arm around me in the best schoolmarm manner. ‘I’m fine, Uncle David,’ and she steered Callum and me to the curb. I talked with the girl from the other car, sobbing but unhurt.

Cal said softly ‘the car’s on fire.’ Christie yelled firmly ‘the car’s on fire!’ Cal and I walked to the car and reached in to grab some valuables. He grabbed his twix bar. I went to the back and pulled out a tennis racket and a baseball bat. I left my iPhone and passport in the car. Cal left his iPod. Rattled, I guess. Our schoolmarm took us away from the burning wreck.

In a minute it seemed fire and rescue were on scene and the fire was out. A fireman swept the shards off the road. The cars were towed. Traffic flowed again.

 Cal gave the girl from the other car his twix bar, saying he’d heard chocolate was good after a crash. Christie reminded him he’d learned that from Harry Potter movies. Chocolate is good for you after a dementer attack.

The police took statements. I iced my hand. The next day Jackie and I went and cleared our stuff out of the car.

Before that moment life seemed so fast and important. Drive here and there, fit everything in. 

Less than a second. Inches. Anything different at that moment and my boy might be gone, the call to Jackie’s sister might have been the hardest call of my life, a young girl in a Subaru could have suffered more than sorrow at turning at the wrong time.

The girl wasn’t doing anything wrong – not texting or anything – she was just not paying attention. I was not on my phone either but could easily have been. I use my phone in the car like it’s part of me. Not any longer. We were both going slow.

Less than a second. I’m still marveling at it. As one dear friend put it, the best birthday present I ever will get was all of us walking away from that car. The best thing I can take from it is to treat driving like it’s real, like it’s meaningful. A wake up call.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio

Spies, Freedom and Unity

             As Edward J. Snowden slinks like an old-school spy through China and Russia to who knows where, and as we all become inured to the fact the National Security Administration knows about each of our impulse Best Buy purchases and how often (or not) we call our mothers, I am reminded of Vermont’s State Motto, Freedom and Unity, and Independence Day.

Vermont’s motto was adopted in 1788. Ira Allen melded it into his design for the Great Seal of the Vermont Republic.  The State Legislature readopted it when Vermont joined the fragile Union in 1791.

It means, of course, finding that balance between individual liberty – the right to do whatever we darn well please, damn the consequences, and the need to act as a whole to protect things like, well, liberty, which sometimes requires us to give up some, uh, freedom. This post is about how we are testing that balance.

Judge Metes Justice

             I remember the day a long time ago, early winter 2005, when my friend and neighbor Dean Pineles retired as a Vermont trial judge.  After a long career on the bench Dean called to say he’d stepped down and was on his way to buy a ski pass.

Most of us when we retire from a job well done would maybe tend a garden, adopt a sport, volunteer for this or that.  And, in fact, for a while Dean did just that: EMT with Stowe Rescue, Stowe Development Review Board, Copley Hospital Board. Dean’s wife, Kristina Stahlbrand, after a wonderful career with the South Burlington School System seemed as well to be settling in to enjoying life in our fair town. But retirement has not gone the typical route for Dean and Kristina.

Not content to visit local coffee shops and pontificate about the world, Dean took a different path.  He became a criminal court judge in war-scarred Kosovo.  

On Hope, Life and My Ántonia

 My home town, each Spring, hosts an event called the “Weekend of Hope,” which is a retreat for cancer survivors and their families.   I was invited this year to do a reading at an ecumenical service at Stowe’s Community Church, and was deeply touched and a bit intimidated by the request to read something.  The charge was to do a reading about hope.

For my reading I chose two bits from My Ántonia by Willa Cather.  We named our daughter after the main character, not least because of the way Cather’s Ántonia tackles adversity throughout the story and finds a pathway to happiness.  I read small sections from the beginning of the story and the end. 

The process of thinking about hope and why this particular book has had such an impact on my own life was a good one.  The thoughts that came from the process seemed worth sharing.

Ski With Dog

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio

Dog Does National

The ski area is closed. We need to hike up the mountain on our climbing skins. I worry Dex won't be able to take the National down on this warm spring day, but I am wrong. The dog runs through the soft snow and then slides on his back and stops, rolls over, takes a mouthful of snow, content. It is a great day, me and my dog having the mountain to ourselves.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio

Weathering The Storm

The chickens survived the storm; there is more snow now but it is not too much.  The hens found shelter in time.  They weather winter and seem to be wishing for spring.



David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2012 David Rocchio

The Day The Stone Hut Almost Came Down

On the top of Our Mountain, Mt. Mansfield, there sits an old stone hut.  You can rent it for the night through the winter, which can be an adventure.  It is now very sought after and a prized ticket to win the lottery and gain a night in the hut.  It’s not always been so.

This is a story about the day the state almost tore the Stone Hut down.  But first some background.

The Stone Hut, perched on the top of Mt. Mansfield, was built in 1936 by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Many of the same men who cut some of Stowe’s first ski trails also built the hut, which served as a shelter for the workers, hikers and skiers. At some point in its long history the hut became the property of the state’s department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. 

The State conducts a lottery each fall and lucky winners are assigned a night during winter to sleep in the rustic cabin.  The resort allows ‘Stone Hutters’ to ride up a ski lift at the end of the day to reach the hut.  If stone hutters miss the lift it’s walk or give it up.  Once on the summit of the mountain hutters are on their own.

A wood stove heats the cabin and, although the state provides firewood, campers are responsible for everything else, from kindling to cooking.  Once the lifts shut down and the top stations locked up, staying in the Stone Hut is truly winter camping.  And in the hut, with the darkness, the inevitable smoke filling the room, the heat from sweaty bodies contrasted to the cold stone walls, it is as close to medieval we will ever come.

For many years the allure of such rustic camping on the top of a mountain, being able to greet the dawn on Mansfield in silence and peace, just wasn’t that popular.  And that brings us to today’s story.

Sitting some weeks ago in the ski patrol hut, on a day before the good snows came, sitting and drinking coffee rather than skiing in the rain, another patroller, Brian Lindner, and I started talking about the Stone Hut.  I think I noticed there was smoke coming out of the chimney or said something about people being in the hut earlier than usual.  Brian didn’t respond directly.  He said ‘I can tell you a story about the day the state told me to tear that hut down.’ 

Two summers in the early Seventies Brian worked as a Straw Boss running summer crews of the Youth Conservation Corps.  What could be better?  Young, strong and enthusiastic people working all summer improving the trail system, building shelters and otherwise making themselves useful.

This nice summer’s day long ago Brian was sent with a crew to Mansfield to do some trail work.  As he was heading out one of his bosses said ‘and tear down that stone hut up there.’  It seems the department was sick of the responsibility of caring for the hut.  At the time no one really used it anymore; to those running the program it was a nuisance.  But the order didn’t sit well with Brian. Brian grew up with Mansfield and the Hut as backdrop; his father ran the hut in the ‘40s and ‘50s.

He did take his crew out.  They worked their way up the mountain.  Idealistic kids, fit as rain, made their way up the steep slopes of Mansfield.  When they got to the top they stopped for a break in the shadow of the hut.

While the crew munched on their snacks and drank their water, Brian told them the order from Montpelier.  We can imagine some of the group looking up, stopping as they chewed their PB&J’s, others carrying on, not really hearing or caring.

Brian said something to the effect, before we tear it down, maybe they’d all like to know a bit of its history.  A few of the crew likely nodded.  A story beats work.  Young men and women leaning back against the rocks, faces into the sun, arms behind heads, feet crossed; A story beats work.

Brian probably told them about Charlie Lord and the otherhardscrabble ski pioneers who built the original trails.  How they worked to carve paths down the steep chaos of our mountain.  How they had a vision for making turns down steep slopes on long wooden skis.  How hard it must have been – compared to cutting a hiking trail – to cut the Bruce or the Nose Dive Curves or old S-53.  How on one summer’s day, someone sitting right where they were sitting, might have decided it was a good idea to build a stone hut.  And they just did it.  They didn’t study it, or fundraise for it, or contract it out.  They stopped what they were doing and built a camp hut, stone by stone, on the top of the State’s highest mountain.  And it wasn’t even for them.  It was for us.

Brian doesn’t really remember who, but one of the crew stood up and said, ‘no!’ I’m not going to tear it down!’  The others joined in.

This was the early 1970’s, so getting students to protest was about as hard as asking them to drink beer.  On the other hand, Brian struck a nerve. These kids were builders and creators.  They would appreciate, after a summer trying to move probably more than one large chunk of Mansfield granite off a trail, the incredible effort and difficulty required to build the hut.  It would not be in their nature to want to tear it down.

And so they didn’t.

Brian asked if they were refusing.  They said yes.  They stood there for a minute.  Brian said ‘okay.’  That was that. The crew picked up their tools and got back to productive trail work.  The next day, when Brian reported in, no one asked about the Stone Hut.  Brian didn’t volunteer a word.  It never came up again.

A good day’s work, the day the crew wouldn’t tear down the smoke filled hut on the top of Mansfield.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2013 David Rocchio