Oh, that Yankee independent spirit!
At my advanced age, I have to be careful about designating or quoting someone as an “old” friend. A friend “of long duration” almost always ends a current phone conversation with the phrase “Aren’t we so lucky to be living in Vermont? It is paradise.” It is. I heartily agree. Both of us grew up and later married and raised our families in the New York metropolitan area suburbs. She stayed in various towns on Long Island. I migrated to southern Connecticut. But the cultures remained very similar.
After Tropical Storm Irene and all the flooding, I was tasked with visiting houses on Higley Hill Road to offer the residents federal funds to restore the little bridges that had once spanned the brook along side the road. Not one person accepted. The general response was something like, “Thank you for offering, but I can manage on my own.” Oh, that Yankee independent spirit! In New York if you offered someone free money, the hand would whip out immediately.
I love the local attitude. I also love how beautiful it is here, almost every blessed inch of the place! Decades ago, the Travel section of the New York Times had an article titled: “The 50 Places You Must See Before You Die.” Predictably, the 50 included the Grand Canyon, the pyramids of Egypt, etc. It also urged people to visit “the state of Vermont.” No other statet was so designated. I think that was quite an honor. I have hiked the Grand Canyon and visited the pyramids and can easily say that the state of Vermont can hold its own in such company
When I was age 18 and entering college, I, of course, saw myself as a fully-seasoned adult New Yorker. I entered an all female college out in the sticks (the only place my Sicilian father would approve, since it was virtually a nunnery). I was stunned to find that the place had a 10% quota for Jews and another 10% quota for Catholics. The other 80% were almost entirely New England-bred Protestants. And what a dumpy crew they were to my 18-year-old eyes: no make up, frumpy clothes and, worst of all, they thought nothing of going around all day in the horrible bloomered gym suits we had to use. God those things were hideous!
It took a while, but I smartened up and came to see great value in my classmates. One thing they were not was shallow. Where I live now I have gravitated to two very Yankee ladies, a 93-year-old from Boston and an 87-year-old from Orleans. They never complain. Like everyone else here they have failing bodies, but they soldier on with scarcely a murmur. I really, really love that, since it stands out in very stark contrast to all the whining and fussing that most people here do all day long. So, even though I will always be a lowly “flatlander,” I sing the praises of beautiful, kinky, idiosyncratic, tough old Vermont.
