Month: February 2018

“I see the sun, and if I don’t see the sun, I know it’s there. And there’s a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun is there.”

                                                                  ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

There is no direct road from Portland, Maine to Burlington, Vermont so we have to backtrack down the coast and then head west.  Why Burlington, you ask pensively, was this the place of still more Fenton adventures?  When the Forest Service closed its research center in New Lisbon, NJ, my father was given a choice of new assignment: Princeton, West Virginia or Burlington, Vermont.  South or North.  I remember Pop telling us this and I also remember hoping it was Burlington, although I have no idea why.   I had assumed that he would go to the northeast because his roots lay there, but he surprised me by choosing Princeton.  I guess because he thought it would be cheaper down south and he was always true to his penurious ways.  Bill had followed John into the Air Force, so I was left to make the trip south into the heart of Appalachia with Mom and Pop.  But that is a story for another time.

As we drive toward Burlington through the incandescent fall foliage, I can’t help but wonder about this other life I never had, there on the northern edge of America.  Burlington is a beautiful college town nestled between Lake Champlain and the Green Mountain range.  It is the home of the University of Vermont and seems to call out to simpler times.

We are fortunate that even in mid-autumn the warm sun beats down upon the campus of UVM.  I was expecting a frozen tundra re-pleat with igloos and dogsleds, and so had packed some serious winter clothes.   Instead I am surrounded by students in shorts tossing gaily colored discs in an intense and athletic game of Frisbee.  Curse you weather gods! (not).

We loved the campus, but we mainly wanted to amble through the town down the hill to the lake.  Lake Champlain dominates Burlington and you feel drawn to its shores, if only to gaze out at the enormous, glittering expanse.  The local folks have stacked small stones in miniature towers along the shore, perhaps seeking permanence for our transient and immature species.  Later, I found that these rocks are a type of shale called Iberville created from the Earth during the Ordovician period, some 400 million years ago.  Permanence defined.

Church Street Market is an open air pedestrian mall with all manner of shops and restaurants.  We stop at a funky ramen shop and have noodles, refusing to abandon our Asian roots even here in the far north.  The waiter brings a fork and spoon and I have to ask for chopsticks.  Incidentally, the use of the adjective “funky” is superfluous here because ALL the shops on Church Street are funky.  In the dictionary next to “funky” is the phrase “Church Street Market”.

I am not sure what I expected to find here. Would there be a moment of enlightenment where all connected futures are revealed?  It is possible that Pop would have still passed away in 1968 and I would have moved out to Hawaii, and all subsequent events of my life would  have  merged smoothly into the time stream.   Burlington substituted for Princeton. 

But I really don’t believe that.  Like the rocks on the shore, every moment defines the next and so on, building the path upon which we walk.  We are on the long ramble now, you and I, and the little directional signs of our lives point forward — never back.  I am glad I saw Burlington and the great lake and lived on that land for a single day. 

I know at last that the sun is there.

 

Hobbs: Why are you digging a hole?
Calvin: I’m looking for buried treasure!!
Hobbs: What have you found?
Calvin: A few dirty rocks, a weird root, and some disgusting grubs.
Hobbs: On your first try??
Calvin: There’s treasure EVERYWHERE!

         ~ Calvin and Hobbs

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Prior to this trip I had never before visited Maine, much less lived there. Yet it seems like a place I might have lived in another life, a life where I was very cold.  Maine is a place where nature permits people to stay as long as they don’t overtly disturb the land as humans are wont to do.  It’s odd that we often wish to “escape” the city to spend time in a place like Maine, a place that has largely resisted our need to organize the earth.  But this begs the question, why did we construct cities in the first place, only to devise a means to escape from them?  Oh wait, jobs.

We are spending this evening in Portland Maine, about halfway up the coast.  Portland is a fantastic place, and I wish we had more time to explore the many islands that dot the coast, principally Peaks Island and Diamond Island. 

Stephanie is keen to sample the legendary Maine lobster, so we trundled off to find a Lobsteria or whatever they are called.  We found a place a bit out of the way, a funky rough-hewn diner that had a bit of that roadhouse look.  Stephanie and Matthew got lobster (duh) whilst I settled for some now forgotten food-like material.  The trip to Maine was made whole when the lady asked if we wanted chowdah.   Yes indeed I do.  I almost answered “ay-yuh” but that would have immediately exposed me as an interloper and perhaps subjected me to keel-hauling or other arcane northern ritual.

The next morning we stumble down to the breakfast bar, and instead of the usual eggs and bacon I take a wild gamble on the oatmeal.  It had been decades since I last had oatmeal and it’s odd that I still actually like it, given my opposition to all things guck.   I can still hear my mother in her lilting Irish brogue, telling us that it “sticks to yer ribs” before watching us streak out the front door and into the cold morning air.  In homage to that long ago time I promised myself that I will start making oatmeal regularly in the morning,   Here in a place I never knew, a memory is triggered and an old dog is taught an old trick.  Calvin was right.

Next stop; Burlington, Vermont, a place I would have lived except for one fateful decision by Pop in 1965.

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
                                               ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

My father attended the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut and received an undergraduate degree in Forestry.  I often wonder what drove him to take up the study of trees; to consider the place of the hickory, elm and pine.  I think his obsession with forest ecology led to my own amateurish fascination with trees, whom I consider gatekeepers of the planet and who serve as silent witness to our petty squabbles, down here on the ground.

As we drive through the UConn campus I am struck with the similarities with N.C State down in Raleigh, most likely because these great universities began as agricultural schools and evolved into the sprawling campuses of today.

The school of forestry has grown over the years and I found a door that said this:

which is what I expect a door to say after 80 years or so. 

UConn has some of the best ice cream around, all made right there on campus with ingredients supplied by the Benevolent Union of Cows.  This as what writers call a harbinger, as we will eventually go to Burlington, Vermont, birthplace of Ben and Jerry.   In Storrs, we prepare our palette for that future moment.

From Storrs, Google takes us through the beautiful Connecticut countryside toward Providence, Rhode island, the place where Mom was born.  I know almost nothing of Providence or my mom’s home or of the Dunphy family.   Mom was first generation Irish and spoke with an Irish accent.  I remember Mom’s sister, Aunt Gertrude in NYC,  would come and visit with stories from NY.  Aunt Gertrude never married and never owned a car, although I am not sure if those two events were in any way related.   Here is the earliest photo I have of Mom:

We drive through Providence and to me it is just another big city.  I feel no family connection here although if there is a shanty Irish part of town, that is where I would find Mom’s stomping grounds.

We turn north through Massachusetts, skirt Boston and head into New Hampshire.  This part of the trip ventures into places I share no history, at least as far as I know.  Once we make New Hampshire the persistent rain which has followed us like a banshee decides to relent, and we are presented with the kind of vista all road trips should experience at least once.  

Now, *that’s* a picture.

We soldier on toward Maine, a state I always wanted to visit although I am not sure why exactly.  It just seems kind of cool I guess, with a rough-hewn coastline and giant rocks everywhere.  I mean what else do you need? 

I have always assumed the borders between states to be mostly imaginary lines drawn on maps, but between New Hampshire and Maine you have an actual bridge over a real physical barrier aka the Piscataqua River.  This border came under some dispute back in early 2000, as both Maine and New Hampshire laid claim to Seavey’s Island, smack dab in the middle of the Piscataqua.  Spoiler alert!  The US Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that Seavey’s belongs to Maine, although it seems to me that it should belong to “Seavey”, otherwise why bother with all this pesky naming at all?

As we cross the river into Maine I notice two phenomena:  (1) There is a dense fog bank on the Maine side, and, since Maine is where Stephen King lives, there are probably giant *things* in the fog, and (2), there is a long line of cars headed south, clipping along as a leisurely 1 mile per hour.  And by long I mean 4-5 miles long.  Apparently this is common on extended holiday weekends as the folks from NY, Mass, Conn all head back at the same time.  On the other hand they could be escaping the giant things in the fog.  Regardless, I feel bad for all these folks having to endure the grind and the thousands of plaintive cries of “are we there yet?”

Tomorrow will bring us into Portland Maine, where we will sample the famous lobster.