Hiking Vermont's Green Mountains.

          The two of us stood, talking, on the side of the field of the soccer game.  The rain started up again.  The fifth grade girls raced and danced the ball up and down the pitch.  These girls, growing up fast now, used to look like a swarm of bees when they were little, clustered around the ball as it pulled them to one spot and then the next.  Now, a bit older and more athletic the girls were a team, playing their positions, passing, talking to each other.  Serious, concentrating faces set against the first wet day of this long, glorious summer.  Along the sidelines parents, dogs, older and younger kids roamed the edge of the game.  Not everyone watched the action on the field; most just conversed and caught up after this long, glorious summer.  My little girl was out there and it was beautiful.

As we stood there in the rain, we talked about how to get the most out of being outside, before it all closes in and winter comes down on us.  We agreed one way, the best way, to squeeze the most out of these last days of summer, is to walk up and down our Green Mountains.  Although in this blog I don't often go for informational but mostly rather focus on experiential, where we live, in central Vermont, there is great hiking in the fall, and it is worth talking about a bit.

            The most accessible and straightforward hike remains the a small peak near our town of Stowe, Vermont.  It is called the Stowe Pinnacle.  We hiked it in the full sun on a recent Sunday.  The small parking lot was jammed and cars spilled along the edge of the dirt road.  I expected massive crowds on the trails, but it wasn’t that bad.  There was one woman in small heels realizing she’d bit off more than she could chew.  One family near the summit with a screaming two-year-old.  Otherwise it was peaceful as the woods should be.

            Pinnacle is a steep hike but short – about a mile and a half to the granite dome.  It is a pretty trail with some rock scrambles but nothing technical.  Don’t wear heels or flip-flops.  It’s not that easy. And bring water.  With these two tips most days you'll be okay.

On the way up the hill we did run into various pods of friends, which was good for a catch up.  At the summit, on the 600 million year old granite mountaintop, we sat against the rock in the sun and looked across the valley to what seemed like the edges of the world.  We could see other great mountains to hike: Sterling and Whiteface, Mansfield of course, Lincoln to the South, Camel’s Hump.    

Very near the Pinnacle, accessible by a ridge trail from near the top of Pinnacle in fact, is Hunger Mountain, another wild peak and a difficult climb.  It is well worth the effort.  Do it as a long day hike from Pinnacle or as a separate climb from it's own trailheads.  Either way it is a great one.

            Just a week before in fact my son and I drove over to Duxbury and hiked Camel’s Hump.  A five hour, hard scrabble loop – Monroe Trail to Alpine Trail to Long Trail back to Monroe Trail – we loped along, the dog doing two trips for our one.  We took snaps by the B-24 wing. (Yes, a wing from a WWII bomber; it crashed during the war and bits are there still.)  We sat at the top and talked, picnicked, explored. 

Camel’s Hump is a glorious hike, a mountain in wilderness, deep in a large state forest.  The summit is just above tree line, providing plenty of solitude, views in every direction of the Entire World.  Tall hardwoods line the path for most of the hike and, later in fall, create a ring of color to walk through.   There are trailheads in Duxbury, and Hungtington and, via the Long Trail, you can get to Camel’s Hump from the south as well, but it’s a long hike.  There are driving directions on the state's website.

            Another spot in our view from the Pinnacle was Whiteface, a short pyramid of a mountain.  Although short it is a steep and difficult hike.  There are many ways to get to Whiteface.  The best way in is from Johnson, where the Long Trail leaves Route 15 and makes a steady climb through old hardwoods.  It is the most silent wood I have ever walked in.  There are good shelters – Bear Hollow and Whiteface – to make the hike into an overnight for the adventurous.  The walk out from Whiteface can be along the ridge all the way to Smuggler’s Notch or a steep drop down to Beaver Meadow and Mud City.

            Closer in Vermont’s tallest peak, Mt. Mansfield, offers a buffet of hikes.  The Hazleton, which runs between the Nosedive and Perry Merrill, is an odd one: a wilderness trail between two ski trails.  Great with kids and friends.  I know.  We just did it and had a blast.  The Long Trail to the Chin is a tremendous hike – challenging, beautiful, rewarding – if you don’t mind being surrounded by people who did not earn it when you reach the top. That is because you can take a Gondola to near the summit and the Toll Road allows cars to drive to the top.  It is a big mountain so there is plenty of room, but it is not always remote.  You can lose yourself there, and I mean that literally, but you can also be surrounded by families with chips.

             Lincoln, a bit farther to the south, is easily accessed from the Lincoln Gap Road. Take Route 100 to Warren, my home town, and go past the village and take a right toward Lincoln, Vermont, which is another small, rural Brigadoon.  (If you drive the Lincoln Gap Road to Lincoln, keep your eye out for tremendous swimming holes.  One is a small waterfall into a tight pool.  You can dive through the fall into the stream, which is Hobbitian.)

To hike to Lincoln Peak and Mt. Abraham park at the top of the Gap Road and walk north along the Long Trail for a relatively easy hike to the top of the Mountain, which is also a ski resort, Sugarbush, or hike to the south where there are some beautiful and more remote ridgelines and views.  At the end of it all the Warren Store in Warren Village will be a good stop. 

The trails in Vermont right now are bone dry.  There are no bugs.  The hills are starting to take on that hint of Technicolor, which will only grow intense as the fall moves in.  If the weather holds we will take advantage and roam even farther afield to the north and east: Pisgah and Big Jay are very different but awesome choices; Belvidere Mountain; Hazen’s Notch, where you will absolutely see Moose, or at least walk in what they leave on the trail.  

Belvidere is a beautiful hike. There are stretches of trail out of a movie. In fact I shot the final scene of a short film on that trail, dragging my crew and cast of children deep into the woods to do it.  It was worth the walk.

            This all just scratches the surface.  You can learn more from the Green Mountain Club, headquartered on Route 100 just south of us, in Waterbury Center.  Their website is good on information but light on maps.  A quick Google will get you into any number of hiking blogs, however, such as ‘trimbleoutdoors.com,’ which has info on each section of the Long Trail (and a Google map).  

               Details aside there is something ethereal, other worldly, about walking in the Green Mountains. The light in our northern forests, our hardwood stands, the water bubbling along some trails and the deep silence of others make it an incredible experience.

Back on the soccer field, the girl’s game ended.  They sang out a cheer and walked toward us, the mountains all around.  I wonder how much of the joy from that field comes from the kids knowing, at least subconsciously, that in ten minutes in any direction they can be in the silence of deep woods and within a few hours be standing on top of the world?

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

Why?

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

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

            At least where we live, in central Vermont, this summer is all about the good, the bad and the ugly.

            The good is the weather.  Vermont – and seemingly only Vermont – has had beautiful, warm weather stretching back to at least the ides of March.  Yes, there’s been some rain and cold and storm and humid heat but not too much.  Mostly it feels like Southern California.  Without the congestion.  The days pour hot, dry sun out of a clear blue sky.  Aside from a hateful deer fly season, the bugs are tame; gardens are busting with bounty. While much of the rest of the country has borne fire and flood, heat from the edges of hell and old-testament sized thunder and lightening we have had nothing but gentle breezes.  It is bliss.

            The bad?  Well for that you must be a Red Sox fan.  As baseball follows summer you’d hope the fortunes of the Sox would match the bliss of the season.  It is not so.  For those who do not follow the mighty Red Stockings let me sum it up:  they suck.  Watching the pitchers is as fun as getting through a holiday meal in a dysfunctional family – you don’t so much enjoy the experience as hold your breath and hope the whole thing doesn’t blow up. 

The batters are a tease – every now and then they show what they can do.  They then don’t do it for days and days.  And when one or two of the mighty sluggers start hitting well the manager is sure to say something stupid to put the players off their stride, sending at least one of the greats not only into a funk but actually to Chicago.  

I knew the season was a disaster on July 18.  Nothing particularly bad happened that day, but when I looked at the baseball app on my iPhone to see the score against the Yankees, and I saw the date, the number 18, I thought it was the number of runs the Yanks had put up.  I thought we were losing.  The game had not even started.  When I figured it out I was not surprised.

            Yes, for Red Sox fans the glory days of 2004 and 2007 are a heady medicine but, five seasons on, the dose is wearing off.  It had been a long time since a World Series Win.  No one told us about the wicked hangover we’d have when we woke from the dream.  

            And here are some pat clichés for our dear manager Bobby Valentine:  dead man walking; don’t let the door hit you on your way out; here’s your hat what’s your hurry.  Bobby Valentine makes Don “The Gerbil” Zimmer’s time at the helm in Boston seem like a golden age.

            And on that sour note we need to close with the ugly.

            The outstanding weather has a dark side.  It is not normal in these climes to plant a garden in March and see that the spinach wintered over in the fallow ground, to bake through May and June.

            The good side?  Maybe rosemary will start growing in Vermont like a weed the way it does in Italy.  Maybe we’ll be able to grow artichokes and eggplant without a hot house.  But the reality is this much change in the climate of our planet might be fine for the planet but probably is not fine for humans or the world as we know it. 

            Maybe global warming is all just a conspiracy, but not the kind Fox News has told us it is.  Maybe climate change is actually a move by the automotive-oil cabal to make diesel engines function better in formerly cold climes, keeping us addicted to oil but allowing us to go 800 miles on a tank before needing more.  Or maybe it is just a nearly intractable problem we’ll have to overcome our petty differences to confront.

             And maybe we’ll do that just after we all agree on the best way to provide decent, meaningful and world-class publicly funded education to all children, or provide people with meaningful work and income, or develop a rational immigration policy.  Maybe.

            So there you have it:  the good, a summer for the books, one to cherish and remember and enjoy for a bit more; the bad, my Red Sox, living through the worst hangover in the history of baseball; and the ugly, the reality the great weather is a foreshadowing, if not of doom than at least of maybe being able to grow figs and oranges in the hills of Vermont.

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

It Is Summer

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

It Is Summer

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

Foxes Chickens Holidays and Death

Another rooster bites the dust.

We came back from our beach holiday to three unsettling discoveries.

First, Trevor the cock was gone.  A monster of a bird, tall, proud, determined, confident.  We were away for only a week but that's all it took and two years into a good life Trevor was no more.  Not just the rooster but something took all of the flock.

Second, the freezer was open and everything spoiled, a pool of viscous sticky liquid -- a gross mix of water, ice cream, juice from left overs dating back to the 1990's and assorted other sauces -- sluiced over the wood floor.

Finally, the bikes on the porch were still there but were knocked over.

Figuring out what happened to the birds was easy. Foxes are wily and quick.  The fox probably was bringing meat to her den for her pups -- pretty much what we do too so it is hard to sustain anger.  In a quick night attack she left nothing behind but a trail of feathers.

It took a few days but we solved the mystery of the open freezer.  Of course when going on vacation we worry about the ordinary mistakes -- is the iron on or the oven on, did we forget something unforgettable, did we leave the dog in the basement -- but I have never worried about leaving the freezer open.  No one admitted to even going near the freezer before departure.  Would a miscreant break into a house only to crack the freezer open? Tip over some bikes?  I mean, that's mischief but it's too refined, too subtle.

We have a swimming hole behind the house.  We have good friends.  They used the swimming hole, checked the house, grabbed a beer and grabbed some ice.  Damn.  The open freezer is now a closed case.

We solved the mystery of the fallen bikes as well, but first a silver lining:  The silver lining appeared yesterday morning.  One hen, a five and a half year old Rhode Island Red, a hen the kids named Rosie, returned.  She stood like a statue on the lawn.  She was in shock, lonely -- lost even -- but alive and physically well.  Those first days back Rosie wanted nothing to do with the barn.  She was trying to perch on the handlebars of the bikes on the porch, making them tip and fall.

So at least we know what happened and, as for the melted stuff in the freezer, we have perspective.

Trevor is gone.  He was regal and good.  He was the calmest rooster we've ever had the honor to complain about incessantly.  He crowed proudly, long and often.  He was a beautiful Dominique, a credit to his breed.

Can't cry over spilled decade old tomato sauce when your rooster's been killed.

Rest in Peace Trevor.  You will be missed.

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

Birds Falling Out of Nests

            The bird fell out of the nest.  It sat in the grass, looking startled and small.  The dog jogged over (‘uh oh’), but the bird flapped its inconsequential wings and floated at grass-top height, scooting away from the dog.  He was not interested anyway.  He lay down and yawned.

Where To Find A Ghost

My little girl is nine now.  She grows up more and more each day.  Her ears are now pierced, a gift from her grandma on the first day of a summer's visit.  She plays the violin and clarinet beautifully.  She is a good dancer and has taken to soccer.  She is very organized and thoughtful.  (In fact, talking to her on the phone the other day, inquiring about my efforts to do some painting around the house, she wisely said 'remember Dad, a good painter spills a little bit, or even a lot.'  What a wise and thoughtful thing to say to a bad painter like her dad.)

And then I found the list.

Summer's First Day

It is One Hundred Degrees and the Sun burns like a fire.  The sugar snap peas reach for the baking sky, laden with sweet, crisp seed pods.  The solid trellis bends to the north under the weight of the vines; the twine on the pine frame is taut like piano wire.

It is so hot and humid.  The only energy I can muster is to pick peas, stepping between rows of other greens, catching some breeze in the little shade of the vines. 

The garden is early this year, a month ahead.  Many plants sprout bright flowers, already gone to seed.  

It is summer’s first day.  The longest day.  Everything is growing and reaching for the sky.

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

Pigeons, Guns and Cheetos

            The pigeons are a problem.  But without the pigeons I wouldn’t have the gun, and without the gun I wouldn’t have had to go to the gun shop, and without visiting the gun shop I would not now know the batter recipe, but I get ahead of myself.

Gardens, Chickens and Summer Projects

The gardens are all in.  Planted the corn yesterday.  The corn seed was the last to go in.  The soil was dry and warm.  I pushed each kernel into the earth with my thumb, driving it deep into the dirt and it felt like summer.  It typically does not feel this way where we live in late May.  The peas are well up, as are the greens.  Tomatoes, eggplant, all the sensitive shoots, they are in the ground too.  Sunflowers are in.  The rhubarb is already cut and will be baked into sweet crisps or pies before the end of May, at least the stalks not just eaten raw.  It is early to be so into what feel like summer.  I'll take it.

Short Film "The Brothers"

This is easier.  No link.  I am learning!

Enjoy the film as we head to summer. You can read about the film on the vimeo site.  You can read the short story here.  I would love to hear what you think.

Thanks,

D




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

Stream of Thoughts of Spring and Coming Summer

Climbing the stair master at our local gym, which is one of the most perfect gyms in the world, way beyond what a small town deserves, I flipped between two movies – Apocalypse Now and Music Man.  The time flew but I had a wicked headache when I got off the machine.

            The stair master is the closest thing there is to walking up a mountain.  Dwight “Dewey” Evans, probably the best right fielder in Red Sox history (with all due respect to Tony Conigliaro – we’ll never know), was an early adapter of this climbing machine.  I remember the controversy in the early-eighties when Dewey made the then-dead Sox drag his Stair Master around the league during the season.  I suppose hotel gyms were not so good back in the day.  At our awesome gym, called the Swimming Hole, an allusion both to rural landscape where we reside as well as the kick-ass Olympic size pool at the place, there are but two of us as far as I can tell who love the machine and we go to the gym at around the same time most days.  Maybe by writing about it the management will take pity and buy another one – or a ski erg.  Another great machine.

            When did our Swimming Hole change from a new sports facility in a rural town to an established, cherished institution in this almost-suburb?  I never knew we needed it but now I cannot imagine the town without it.  I don’t use it anywhere near as much as I should but I am darn glad it is there.

            I am not a diarist.  If I were it’d be easy to check this fact:  April has always been a cold month where we live.  There is typically snow on the ground through the month and the ski area is typically open and aiming for May.  We don’t usually start mowing our lawns until May.  We do not uncover let alone plant a garden until May.

It is not normal to be able to hike our mountains in April without trashing both hiking boots and trails due to wet conditions.  It is not normal to put in peas in March.  It is not normal to be sun burnt in April heading to May.  This all is not normal.

            Having said all that, and as you may remember from an earlier post now the peas are up (as are the lettuces, the collards, the spinach and some others), the sun is out and is bright, the lawn looks, to quote my son, “like the PGA.”  Can’t decide whether this is a good thing or not.  Kind of like watching Apocalypse Now and Music Man at the same time.  Weather as dissonance.

            And I’ll end this stream by quoting Katie Ives, editor at Alpinist magazine, a world class journal of mountaineering, writing, photography, illustration, and life, built with love just on the other side of our great mountain, now reachable by simple serpentine road rather than needing to drive around the edge of the world. 

Katie posted a note on Facebook (and I’ve come to peace with Facebook – it’s a cacophony of the inane but also not unlike, as a good friend put it, a coffee shop where you see familiar faces), commenting on the beauty of late-spring snow: 

Since last night’s storm, a layer of new snow lies across the hilltops, as brief and soft as the apple blossoms in the spring woods a shimmer of green rises from the valleys, with the sounds of water, growing brighter, and louder.

There is a thinness, a delicacy to spring and summer if you live in a cold place.  Katie, a much better writer, captures it.  I try to capture it here and there (take a look at the film I just posted about).  At the end though you cannot capture it; you have to go out and live it.

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

Short Film THE BROTHERS

Here is a short film, The Brothers, to get you in the mood for late-spring/summer.  It's a small film about judgment.  The story is here.  Adapting it for film was interesting.  The story didn't translate exactly and then, shooting it for zero-budget in two days with three other 'crew' (and mostly just one other), an untrained cast of kids and a dog, the shoot didn't translate exactly to the script.

It was not only interesting to make the film.  It was fun.

It was fun to build because of the story, of course.  It was mostly fun because we shot it with local kids and a dog, which is not easy.  My son, Callum, stepped up.  An older boy in town, also a Callum, was great.  He is I believe going to pursue film acting as a career (not just because of this experience).  We met the older Callum when he was my son's 'reading buddy' when our Cal was in kindergarten.  The other 'older boys' are kids I coached in little league and they all took it very seriously, worked hard, had fun on the ski jump and really paid attention and worked.  Young Park Crist plays the younger brother.  He is great.  I never coached him in baseball but wish I did.  He paid attention and did awesome.  It was funny too because he was so serious during the shoot and then became this goofy little kid again.  Actors.  His parents were cool with the script, too, which was nice ("okay, Park, you can say the word while filming but normally you can't! ...").

The crew was terrific.  We shot the film in a few days and needed to drive all over Vermont because I had specific places in mind for each shot.  It was hard work.  Christian Clark, who shot the film, is now a dear friend.  He did a beautiful job.

The festival thing was terrific.  Capalbio was an unforgettable experience where we met such great friends.  Being there with my son, 'the actor,' who was so into the movies at the festival and loved the people we met, was just unbelievable.

Last thing -- I recorded the sound as we shot and feel it colors the piece well.  Maybe listen with headphones ....

There's more descriptor about the film on the Vimeo website but mostly just enjoy the film.  Share it all you'd like and let me know what you think.



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

Peas Are Up

            We came back from vacation to a warm, cloudy sky.  The lawn was long and buds crowded the trees.  The first thing I did was walk over to the garden and see the seedlings.  The peas were up, as were the lettuces.  The collards were only started.  No sign of turnips.  But the peas were up.

            I planted the peas – and the rest – in mid-March, which in Vermont is the same as saying I had Christmas in mid-November.  It’s just not done.  In a normal year, even a good year, I’d be turning the garden and planting the hearty seeds no earlier than now.  Well, it’s not a normal year.

            I weeded, pulling tree shoots and dandelions out of the beds.  I rolled the tractor out of the barn and filled it with gas and mowed.  Ennis and I went for a run, shorts and t-shirts.

            The temperature has dropped – fell like paint off a ladder – and it is now cold and wet.  A steady rain for a day and more now.  The lawn velvet green, beautiful, as close as our yard gets to golf course.  Our lawn, mowed out of primordial hay field and never treated with anything more than dog doo and the occasional back yard pee.

            I spent a rainy Sunday starting seeds inside.  Basil, eggplant, tomatoes (lots of tomatoes), hot peppers.  I negotiated a space in the house for my potted seeds.  I researched the price of screened topsoil.  I sourced some composted manure.

            Although spring came early this year – way early – I still can’t put anything else out because we could – probably will – still have a frost.  I’ll tend the seedlings inside, turn the beds, weed what’s planted and wait for memorial day, when everything else will likely go in.

            We’ll have sugar snap peas in May, though.  I’ll plant a second crop and we’ll have peas through most of the summer.  It is not normal but I could get used to it.

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

March Into Summer: An Atypical Spring In Vermont

            March is usually a predictable month.  Here, in the North it is usually still winter; only a faint harbinger of Spring.  Usually it comes in with fields of cold snow, bright blue skies, lengthening days.  As this photo shows, March typically starts with piles of snow above the windows, like massive waves on a white sea.  But this photo is from last winter.  It is not this March.  
           Typically March brings big storms and worries about barn roofs collapsing and never ending winter; typically March leaves with slight warmth and a big snow pack to make April just miserable.  But not this year.

Kids Do Well

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2011 David Rocchio

Spring is Springing

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2011 David Rocchio

Winter Weather and Wellness in Vermont

Vermont winter storms come from a handful of happenstance.  The weakest and more localized storms are “mountain-induced events.”  This is weather generated by slope and elevation.  Much of the winter we can earn a bounty through lake-effect snow.  Fronts are what brings most of our meaningful weather.  They are typically driven by two massive and antipathetic wind patterns, prevailing westerlies and polar easterlies.  The largest storms are ‘Nor’easters.’  Most winters (but not all winters) at least an inch of snow falls on at least 20 days and as many as 40 days and the ground is covered by snow from November through at least Easter.  

It's almost too complicated for words.  The winter weather in Vermont is deeply affected by elevation, terrain, slope, which direction a slope faces, wind, localized wind, Lake Champlain, the Atlantic Ocean, ice on the Great Lakes (and Lake Champlain), wind currents in the Pacific (and the Atlantic) to name just a handful of an infinite number of factors.  Needless to say then no two winters are alike.  

As we all know it is hard weather to predict.  Meteorologists describe this difficulty as “highly changeable,” which is a terrific euphemism.

            Take a recent Saturday, for example.  The forecast was for a day of rain and freezing rain.  It was sunny, calm and warm – at least at our house.  It was misty on Mount Mansfield in the morning and rained hard for about twenty minutes.  We never would have know it down in the valley.  I skinned up the mountain late that day under a calm and bright blue sky.  Near the top I experienced high winds (surprise surprise) and thunder.  Thunder in March. 

            Thunder in March is not normal.  Wind is always normal.  Beyond localized conditions, Vermont in winter is affected by the “prevailing westerlies,” which are born in the tropics and driven north.  These winds move the way they do because of the rotation of the earth.  North of us are the “polar easterlies,” which are blocks of extremely cold air driven away from the poles to the west.  The polar easterlies and prevailing westerlies slam into each other around here.  In the winter the boundary is typically southern New England.  In the summer the boundary moves north.

This collision zone is called the “polar front”; warmer moist air to the south, dry cold air to the north.  The collision creates winter storms, typically snow but not always, typically the snow falls here but not always, typically it means Vermont has snow cover from fall through spring (but not always).  The jet stream, racing high above us, determines where this boundary sits day-to-day, year-to-year.  It’s too much to even think about understanding how many variables determine where the jet stream sits.

Forecasters up here must be brave because forecasting is a fool’s errand in Northern New England.  It can make people laugh out loud.  Weather can be decidedly different from one town to another, at one elevation or another, on a north-facing slope compared to an easterly slope.

            The prevailing westerlies can bring us lake-effect snow – moist air brought from open water of the Great Lakes – and the collision between the polar easterlies and westerlies can bring tremendous blizzards.  Occasionally (more and more?) the prevailing westerlies collide so quickly with the polar easterlies that the warm air climbs on top of the cold air creating an inversion.  If the collision causes a storm it can be rain above and turn to ice as it falls through the colder air below.  Ice Storm.  We can also be given the gift of a strong Yankee Clipper, which moves from the colds of the Canadian prairies and races east, typically bringing light snow and then massive cold and sometimes a blizzard.

            Another pattern usually striking late in a winter can hit Vermont hard.  Although the westerlies and the polar easterlies mean we are not a maritime climate, the cold water current along the Atlantic Coast can generate massive storms.  The prevailing westerlies draw warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico up the coast.  When the weather hits the cold North Atlantic the pressure becomes cyclonic.  When temperature differences and the size and depth of the collision are strong these colliding patterns generate massive storms – very like hurricanes – driving tremendous amounts of snow (or rain) into Vermont, counter-clockwise from the coast. 

And here’s what we love.  When it’s cold and dry in February and March, a big Nor’easter will bring three feet of snow in a day.  The storms can also reform and cycle through more than once.  A Nor’easter during a cold March can dump as much snow in a day as all of the snow from all of the days of the rest of the winter.  For many it is why we are here.

            We can barely predict the weather.  We have no control over it.  I barely understand it and I am sure there is something metaphoric in writing about it (but like Chance the Gardener I won’t claim to know what it is). 

The only thing certain about the winter weather in our little town is this: nothing we do impacts our collective wellbeing more.  It makes us.  And, to borrow from another film, anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something.  In much of the country it is full on spring.  Here, it is too soon for spring.  We crave more winter.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2011 David Rocchio

Before Winter's Done

Big storm two Sunday's ago; hopefully not the last.

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

Sometimes Architecture Works: Boston, Hancock Tower, Clouds, Glass

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

Local Performing Arts Center Potential Home Run

            In our town we have a new performing arts center.  It is a beautiful building.  The acoustics are world class. With room for more than four hundred people, the theater is large enough for most any program.  The seats are comfortable and there is not a bad spot in the house.  The lobby is large, crying out to host parties before and after a show.  The staff and volunteers are terrific.  But it is never full and often audiences are very small.  Why is it not thriving?

Keep School Buses Local (And Other Reasons To Know The People Around You)

           I live in a small town.  And in our town a local story has struck a nerve.  The story is whether it is worth saving money by awarding our school bus contract to a national company or whether it is better to spend more, maybe $50,000 or so, so our school buses are run locally.  Although it’s a local story it is a universal question, but I’ve got to back into it.

We have a new Thai place in town.  It is in the same spot as the old Thai place and has the same staff and décor as the old Thai place.  It’s even run by the same wonderful woman, who works hard.  I don’t know why they have changed their name and said they are new – it might be strategic and it might be personal – but as part of the grand opening they threw an open house.  Free food and a big party.  

The kids and I joined a swarm of neighbors and friends.  We walked in to a warm welcome and were hustled to a long family-style table.  We saw many familiar faces around the place as we elbowed our way to the platters of pad Thai and sushi, aromatic chicken and spicy dumplings.  We looked around at tables crowded with parents and kids, couples out on a free date, lone diners elbow to elbow with big groups, all enjoying the buffet party.  A guitarist belted tunes and hammered away on his axe, like a John Hiatt shouting over the restaurant din.  Ski bums, worker bees, and hangers on at a free feast.  Like a church supper, we all talked and laughed.  We commented on the savory rice, welcoming the new-old Thai place – Hot Spice – to it’s new, well same, home on the Mountain Road.

            And right on the heels of the Thai Place Open House came the rousing annual Christmas party at our local paper, the Stowe Reporter.  Early in the cycle of holiday revels, the Stowe Reporter Party opens the season and is a real throw down.  The party spills from the reception area of the paper’s headquarters – an old clapboard house in town – photo in last post – into the small rabbit warren of offices and up the windy, creaky wooden staircase.  Some years it’s a bender (I didn’t stay long enough this year to say).  The publisher’s palatial penthouse was jammed, elbow-to-elbow, with an entire town, including many faces from the Thai feast. 

Writers, ad guys, managers, business owners, friends, enemies, colleagues, their kids, town officials and at least one dog libated to ring in the season at the town’s weekly broadsheet.  Finding someone to talk with was about as easy as putting off chores.

It’s all a part of being in a small town.  We are living out of each other’s pockets.  We say ‘good morning’ when we drop the kids off at school, share a kind word when we see each other getting coffee ten minutes later at the gas station, nod hello at the grocery store, smile kindly when driving politely through the stop sign in town.  Our accountant’s daughter is our baby sitter. Everything we do is with the people we live around.  It is community and the commonality of each event is we are all at them together.  Well, not all, that would be weird, but the overlap is interesting.  We socialize with each other and see each other regularly.  This is not typical, but it is small-town normal.  There are upsides and downsides to living in close quarters.

            We could easily live where we are anonymous.  Where each event we attend is with a different group of people; where we don’t know the diners around us at a restaurant or the faces at the elementary school in the morning or the coffee shop later in the day.  Urban anonymity is a short drive in any direction.  Sixty million people live within a five-hour drive of our town. 

But we live here, saying hello to the same six people five times on a given day.  More than any reason to be here – where it is cold and dark half the year, the mosquitoes have names and you cannot get take-out – is community.  And this is why the idea of pulling the school bus contract has struck a nerve.  

            Stories about school bus contracts do not make the paper in most places in America.  The big yellow buses move through towns and cities countrywide.  For the most part the drivers are as unknown to the parents as, well, the other parents.  I bet though people crave stories like the bus contract story.  People crave connectivity even if they’d like it with a healthy dose of anonymity (and the availability of take-out).

            With seven billion people on the planet isn’t it nice to know a few of the people around you?  I think it is.

A month ago our kids’ school bus driver came up to us at, yes, the Thai place in Waterbury, a town down the road.  We learned from her our street was going to close and we chatted for a while.  She knew us.  She came up to us.  A friend told me about how her third grader – doing what he was supposed to do – got off the bus at the end of a quiet dirt road.  It would be dark soon.  The driver stopped the bus and called the parent, double-checking the drop-off was right.  Has your child lost a backpack?  It’ll be at the bus barn.  Substitute driver?  Oh that’s Mr. McHugh, a cop and neighbor in town.  At many away sports events the only parents in the room are the bus drivers.

            It is just not worth saving a few dollars by shipping the bus contract out of town.  Being analytical and efficient has its place, but is not everything and can in fact be quite corrosive.  The cold calculus of economics is devastating communities worldwide.  Look at some basic barometers – school quality, neighborhood safety, teen drug use – and we are failing.  Call it commonsense or call it a ‘happiness index.’  What is at stake when we give up some basic connectivity is nothing less than our humanity.

Sounds a stretch but think about it:  regardless of where we live community is all about connectivity.  The buses are true connectors – they take the kids from one life – home – to another, bigger, more anonymous life – driving the kids to school, sport events, the Boston Science Museum, Maine, even New York City.  That connector could be a less expensive one, separate from community.  Or, if we’re up for it, it could be us.  

Why is it important to have connectors?  It makes the world safer; people are more polite, makes it harder to rationalize unethical behavior if you know your victims (right, bankers?); less worry and more help getting through the day; more smiles during the day; peace of mind; less likely to drive like a nut.  The more connectors we have in life - the more we know about what is going on around us - the better is, well, life. 

Here's the question, and in the case of the school bus it is a simple one:  How much is it worth to know who is driving your kids to school?  The answer is a lot.

The harder versions of this question are how much is it worth to know who is growing your food, making your shoes, sewing your clothes, policing your streets, running your bank, running the businesses we rely on?  Calculus might be more complicated but the answer is the same:  Local is better.  

And I don’t think it only works rural.  It might not be the most efficient way to run the world, but it would be the most human way.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2011 David Rocchio

Local Paper Throws Holiday Fest

The Stowe Reporter is our local weekly.  It's annual Christmas/Holiday Party gathers the whole town.  See the windows all steamed up?  Great way to start the holiday season.










David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2011 David Rocchio

The Road We Live On

            For where we live, in northern Vermont, our road is a busy street.  It is straight and it is paved - two rare features for our neck of the woods - and therefore it is subject to being treated not as a quiet country byway but as a good old American highway.  This road, Stagecoach Road, was recently closed for two weeks.  This all stems from Irene.  As hurricanes go Irene was not too windy or too violent.  Irene though carried massive amounts of rain. I could stand outside in the downpour and smell the sea air, which is notable only because we live hundreds of miles from the sea.  Irene was a beautiful storm but a dangerous one. No one was hurt, and we escaped with no damage, but the tail end of our road took the brunt of the storm. A neighbor's basement collapsed. The edge of the street near where it meets the main road to town eroded away. 

            For a month or more after the storm the town end of Stagecoach was cut to one lane of traffic.  This change was welcome to anyone living on the road because it slowed traffic for a short stretch.  This slowed the racers.

            We didn’t hear of the plan to close the road.  This doesn’t mean the plan wasn’t discussed publicly; it just means the bad shape of the road simply didn’t register on the scale of things to worry about.  My son did ask one day whether when they fixed the road it would be blocked off; we talked about it on a drive to school one morning.  We concluded, ‘no, the road would be left open.’  We didn’t talk about it again.  And we were wrong.

In fact we only heard the road was going to be cut from the rest of town when we ran into the kids’ school bus driver at the Thai Restaurant in Waterbury, a town near the interstate.  Yikes.  No school bus.  Need to drive north, to the neighboring town in the other direction, Morristown, and then reverse direction, adding time to the day.  Adjustments were called for. We put the planning gears in motion, set the alarm a bit earlier and prepared to learn a new commute to the school, a new plan to get the shopping done, a new pattern to coming home for lunch.

In fact though getting to town was not the big news of the detour.  The big news was the quiet.  Our little straightaway of road is typically not treated like the settled country lane it is.  Our country road is treated like a speedway.  Somehow saving up to one and one half minutes on a drive to Mo’ville justifies pushing the old Buick up to eighty while flying by the old Misty Meadow Herb Farm.  And it is to some even worth passing at breakneck speed, not for a second thinking a family might be pulling out of a driveway on this narrow road.

It's not like we rail against the road.  We are adjusted to it.  We sit on the porch in the summer, drinking our morning coffee, watching the pick up trucks drive by.  Occasionally we swear at a crazy driver thinking this is a Batman Movie but mostly we take it in stride.  But then they blocked the road and everything became quiet.

And the quiet was welcome. Yes, we had peace for two terrific weeks.  We could hear the breeze.  No car noises marred the kids’ band practice.  The hens could graze along the edge of the road.  We could collect the mail without safety goggles, helmet and yellow vests.

The peace wasn’t perfect.  Despite three signs saying, I’d say pretty clearly, “Road Closed,” there were some who drove past the signs, past the barriers and up to the construction site thinking the signs meant road closed “but not for me.”  Picture it: car drives by confidently toward the end of the road, pauses, looking for a cut in the work to sneak through, realizes there is no cut through and then skulks back north with tailpipe between legs.

Road closed. Cut off.  No one calling by.  Deeply quiet.  Forced to change long-settled patterns of behavior.  One big rainstorm and we’re all in turmoil.

Okay, it was little things like we shopped at the big grocery store in Morrisville rather than our own little one in town. It wasn’t big things, like Berlin, August 1961; waking up one morning faced with the Berlin Wall.  But it was a window into how things can change. 

Geography and the vagaries of civil engineers have as much to do with community as what we want to define ourselves. One minute we are a short, straight mile from the edge of town and the next minute we are a looping ride in the wrong direction, by a small golf course and then back into town with the traffic.  Inconvenience, change, busting up of routine; it is always difficult.

            Just before the roadwork was done I drove my little girl down to see the construction site.  The steamrollers were blocking the road so I parked and we walked onto the shiny black macadam, looking down to the new retaining walls and massive piles of moved earth and the huge machines parked, waiting for the new day.  Just across the barriers was the road to town, so close we could taste it.  In a day we’d have our road back, new and improved.  How exciting! 

            My little girl didn’t care.  When I turned to get her reaction she was well into her walk home; already past the vet’s house; not at all interested in the newness and the construction site and the reopening of our artery.  She was striding down the deserted asphalt strip in the gloam of a late fall dusk.  There was no traffic.  It was quiet.  She had adjusted to Stagecoach as cul-de-sac and all was well with her world.

David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2011 David Rocchio