"I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people." - President Calvin Coolidge, 1927
Born in Glens Falls, New York I guess I'm a New Yorker by birth. That always sounds weird because I don't associate myself with anything New York. I remember more about the farmhouse that I spent my first four years in than the other two house I would spend the next four.
My earliest memories outside of the farmhouse take place in what's called the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont in a town called Morgan Center on Seymour Lake. My grandparents had owned a summer house (we call them camps in Vermont) since the 50's. At one time, my family had four camps on this lake. I vaguely remember my great grandmother four camps down the road. My parents owned the camp across the street until I was eight. Two houses down were my grandparents friends the Cargills. Their front porch was also the post office.
Across the street, I went to church every Sunday. Yes it's true. I went to church every Sunday. To this day, I don't know what denomination that church was, and I often wish I could just write "Morgan Center Church" when asked religious preferences on documents. I took swimming lessons on the Gray's beach in July. I went to bible school (yup did that too) up the hill at the other, "winter" church.
We spent every summer up there. The best weeks were those when my parents left us alone with our grandparents. Those were weeks in which we were spoiled with candy and movies that my parents wouldn't let us watch, and early morning fishing trips.
The Kingdom is special place. It's a hard working people that live there. To say they are down to earth, doesn't give them credit enough. My sister classified it perfectly when she said, "You know how in some parts of the country people are just nice to you because it's polite? In the Kingdom, people are nice to you when you earn it."
There's something refreshing to me about that honesty.
My parents sold their camp when we moved to Massachusetts. We moved to Massachusetts in December when I was in the third grade. I remember this because I remember this because we even packed our Christmas tree in a garment box. I don't know that I was able to put two and two together, but I never really liked living in Massachusetts. I just never felt like I fit in for one reason or another. I think I was in middle school when I started thinking about colleges and I saw that as an opportunity to get out of Massachusetts.
Both of my parents went to UVM, and for as long as I can remember understanding what college is, that's where I was headed. When I graduated I was staying in Vermont - preferably the Northeast Kingdom.
Well, I did get to Vermont and I got into UVM. I found a school in Saint Michael's College that fit me and my needs better and enrolled and graduated from there in 2001.
Vermont was everything I had hoped it to be. By coincidence, the very first people I met at Saint Michael's were from St. Johnsbury, VT - my mother's hometown in the Kingdom. College life in Vermont was all I had hoped it would be.
After graduating, there was nowhere else besides Vermont I wanted to be.
(Part II of III)
:) Amen, bro.
ReplyDelete