READERS WRITE

Swimming, hunting, rafting, snacking on donuts, snacking by porcupines—thanks to the readers who offered up their memories of favorite places and activities in the Green Mountain State. Jane Jackson ’83 takes the prize this issue for her letter reminiscing about weekend visits to writer Noel Perrin’s farm. Other correspondents need not despair. It’s all but impossible to beat a memory with fresh cinnamon rolls and goat steak.

NEXT ASSIGNMENT
As twenty-five inches of snow fell on Burlington, The Great Valentine’s Day Blizzard of ’07 shut down campus. Tell us about the most memorable weather event of your college years. Let the thunder peal, the rain pour, the wind howl, the snow blow—hey, you could even let the sun shine. E-mail responses to vermontquarterly@uvm.edu or Vermont Quarterly, 86 South Williams, Burlington, VT 05401.

THE PRIZE: Our judges will select the top letter, and the winner will receive a copy of Professor Wolfgang Mieder’s collection Yankee Wisdom: New England Proverbs, a volume sure to shed some light on Vermont’s memorable weather.

—Thomas Weaver, Editor 

Tell us about your favorite Vermont place during your student days.

FIRST PERSON PERRINS
My sophomore year at UVM (1980-81), freshman Elisabeth Perrin, who lived on my floor at Patterson Hall, and I became close friends. We made several visits together over the next few years to see her father, the late, distinguished writer and Dartmouth College professor Noel Perrin. He lived on an old farm, where Elisabeth and her sister grew up, in Thetford Center, a scenic village close to the New Hampshire border. I have many fond memories from those trips, among them sampling goat steak made from a goat that had lived a happy life at the farm.  (Noel Perrin later wrote about factory farming and taught environmental studies. And I became a vegetarian.) Other memories include making maple sugar in their kitchen, strolling to the general store Sunday mornings to buy mouth-watering cinnamon rolls, and leisurely hikes through the rolling hills and pastures of this quintessential Vermont village.

Jane Jackson ’83
Brooklyn, New York

WHERE THE PORKIES ROAM
University friends and I liked to follow trails up Mt. Mansfield or in the vicinity. One time, with a chaperone, an instructor in the zoology department, we headed for a rustic cabin on the trail, carrying sleeping bags and food to share in packs on our backs.

I was edging around a cliff when my heavy pack threw me off balance.  I slid down the slope headfirst, landing in a small bush. My companions laughed before any of us realized that this bush was the only bush on the slope. If it hadn’t stopped my slide, I would have continued on down unchecked for a couple hundred feet.

After we arrived at a cabin and started a fire, I put my wet shoes near the campfire to dry out, forgetting to take them into the cabin. In the night a porcupine gnawed on one of them to get at the salt from my foot. I had a very difficult time hiking back to civilization with a shoe that was half chewed apart! Porcupines also kept us awake during the night, clanking across the corrugated metal roof with their quills.

It was a worthwhile and still unforgettable experience.

Natalie Clapp Barber ’49
Green Valley, Arizona

RAFTING THE WILD WINOOSKI
Someone at 212 White Street in South Burlington mentioned the Winooski River Raft Race in the spring of 1973. It could have been any of us—Laine or Robert Lucenti, Carolyn or Steve Yanagi, Harry Ryan, or myself. It wasn’t relevant, since the idea stuck.

My job was to build the raft, since I was the engineer. So, after several trips to the dump, the raft was made from eight 55-gallon drums and assorted pieces of scrap lumber. To provide a modest means of control, two large paddles were constructed.

In comparison to my “humble” design and construction efforts, the recruiting effort for crew was outstanding, an effort that continued during a party on the night before the race. With creative efforts, the raft and the crew made it into the water at the starting line. The crew kept coming and coming until there were about thirteen people on board. One guy, when told he couldn’t enter without a lifejacket, stuck a Styrofoam cooler under his jacket.

I was in a dilemma. The raft was underwater and three more people were waiting to climb on. Do I follow nautical tradition and go down with my engineered raft? My survival instinct took over. I gave my life jacket to another crew member and proceeded to take pictures. Of course, I took a lot of ribbing also.

The raft made it to the first turn, when it was realized that too many people were on board to work any steering. The first rock was hit, barrels broke loose, and folks began falling off. In hindsight, it may have been a good thing since it limited the crew time in the cold water. The current information on hypothermia would not recommend this as a safe event.

Ants Uiga ’73
Bodfish, California

GREEN MOUNTAIN HUNT
Every November during my UVM matriculation I would spend as many days as possible hunting deer near the Long Trail hiking path on the divide between the Lake Champlain and Connecticut River watersheds. Deer were seen every day with an occasional majestic buck. The terrain was spectacular and included a pyramid-shaped mountain crested with a spruce tree forest and a steel observation tower, another mountain topped with a large grove of beech trees where delicious beech nuts could be found in the ankle-deep fallen leaves, a “gap” between two of the mountains where a fierce wind was usually blowing, a thirty-foot diameter spring with a white-sand bottom that appeared to be “boiling,” and a secluded pond nestled in a spruce tree forest below a quartz-rock cliff. Other hunters were rarely seen. I have frequent thoughts of trying to relive this tranquil experience which was so pleasant for me.

Malcolm “Buddy” Russell ’58
Idaho Falls, Idaho

QUARRY IDYLL
My favorite place off campus was actually not too far away: the rock quarry. A pristine and serene place, I wonder if it is still accessible. You could really only take advantage of it on either end of the academic year; the water was cool, clear, and deep.

Here there was a nice harmony between “town and gown.” The locals hanging out there would exchange head nods and “hi ya doin’” with us—never a problem. We would regale ourselves all afternoon seeing who could get best “air” and make the biggest splash off the jagged ledges.

My best time there was that magical, irreproducible speck of time between the end of finals and graduation day, sunning ourselves on the warm rocks like lizards—catatonic bliss!

Robert Glazer ’77
Palos Verdes Estates, California

ALUMNA RUNS ON DUNKIN'
This is easy—the Dunkin’ Donuts on Shelburne Road. I lived on Redstone Campus and had a car most of my time at UVM. Just before curfew, and, when it went the way of the Dodo Bird, at all hours, especially during finals week, I’d pile a group of friends in the car and we’d make a DD run down the back way along South Prospect to Ledge and down the hill to Shelburne Road. This was in the days when DD still used ceramic cups and the real dunkin’ donut (with the little handle)! We’d sit at the counter, drink coffee, eat donuts with the truckers, and giggle as only college girls can, then pile back into the car for the steep drive back. The place was safe and welcoming and cheap and the best study break ever! That experience built good friendships and gave me the deep product knowledge of Dunkin’ Donuts. To this day, I just can’t live in a place that doesn’t have a Dunkin’ Donuts!

One year when I returned for Reunion, of course I made a “pilgrimage” back to that wonderful store. It’s still there and still serving the same great coffee—alas, no longer in ceramic cups and the donuts with the little handle have passed from the scene.  But I had a cuppa and a glazed for old time’s sake. Still delicious.

Norine Noonan ’70
Charleston, South Carolina

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