Old Issue and Aging

I haven't mentioned wake boats for some time, but since that on-going, now old issue is still to be decided in our legislature, it is probably wise to "hold their feet to the fire" and send off more messages to our representatives in legislature protesting the 500 ft. from shore rule in the present proposal and requesting it be increased to 1000 ft. This would eliminate wake boats from Joe's Pond and several neighboring small bodies of water. If you agree, there is a new form letter that can be sent out. LETTER. The intent seems to be to keep reminding legislators how passionate we are about these very damaging water craft. There will be a Legislative Committee in Administrative Rulemaking Meeting sometime this month and a formal amendment to the present Use of Public Waters Rule voted sometime later. If you are interested, the Public Waters Division of Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation has a comprehensive time line of this process one online. Looking at a depth map, it's hard to chart a significant course on Joe's Pond that is within the 500 ft/20 ft depth limit.

I continue my battle with obsolete mechanisms. Yesterday as I was leaving for an appointment, I backed out of my garage and hit the button to lower my garage door, but nothing happened. I thought my opener needed new batteries, so I hastily dashed into the house and grabbed a spare opener so I could get back in when I came home, but when I tried to lower the door with it, that didn't work, either. I was running out of time, so I used the switch in the garage. I'm used to punching that, the door goes down and that's it. Not so. As soon as I let up on the switch to leave, the door stopped and went back up. I finally got it closed by holding the switch down. I'm not sure what's going on - my opener worked fine when I got home, it only seems to be compromised some way when closing the darned door. I suppose since most of the hard-wired mechanisms in my house are about the same age, they are likely to be all failing at about the same time. I have no clue. But with winter approaching, the last thing I need is a balky overhead door on my garage. One more thing to grumble over.

Mary Whitcomb sent me these screen-shot photos from a video Jess Langlois, WCAX meteorologist, made a few days ago. I couldn't find the video - Mary said to click on Weather and then Fall Foliage, but I guess it may have been taken down by now. Unfortunately, I didn't get to post it when Mary sent it to me. The two photos she sent show  Burtt's Orchard here in Cabot.

The top one is looking generally southwest. You can see Cabot Plains Road clearly, the orchards on the left with the main building and parking lot. Across the road you can see the new storage building in back of the farmhouse. In the distance is Dunstable Farm, the well-known turkey/dairy farm operated by the Bothfeld family for I believe now fourth (and perhaps fifth) generations. I believeTheodore "Ted" Bothfeld bought the place in the 1940s. His son Walter took over from his father, then his son, Walter "Skip," and finally Skip's son Raymon, who was seriously injured recently in a farm accident, operated the farm. Raymon will resume as soon as he has fully recovered, I expect, and he has a young son, but whether or not he will carry on the family tradition remains to be seen.

The Burtt farm was originally owned by A. M. Foster who developed the "Foster Spout," widely used in the maple producing industry for many years. The farm (pictured right) was known as "Maple Glen" and was a beautiful show place, well known for their production of excellent maple syrup - and for popular "Sugar Parties" like the one in 1902 shown in the photo on the left. Alonzo Foster's daughter, Linnie, married Payson Walbridge and the place continued to operate as a dairy and maple farm. After Payson died, the place was sold to Robert and Barbara Davis. Bob Davis had been manager at Cabot Creamery for several years and Barbara was actually the farmer who kept the Walbridge farm operating both as a dairy farm and maple producer. After the Davises retired and left the area, Keith Burtt bought the farm. His son, Gregg, has the orchard and  they operate a maple products business together, carrying on the tradition of the farm. They also have beef cattle, but no milking herd, so the farm's barn is not used and is in disrepair. At lower right is a photo taken in 1979 of the same farm. 

I had lunch yesterday with a long-time friend from the days we worked in St. Johnsbury at Lesnick's together. Lucille (Jones) (Hoyt) Oakes was bookkeeper for the Lesnick Farm Machinery business, and I was assistant bookkeeper for the DeSoto-Plymouth auto agency. We were trying to remember names of people we worked with - the Lesnick brothers, Harry and Louis, were our bosses, Jim Atherton was manager in the auto service department, Gerry Vail managed the parts department, Arthur Nelson was head bookkeeper, and there were numerous salesmen, mechanics and a few part-time employees. We remembered some of them, Paul Noyes, Roger Donna, Doris Moore and a few others, but that was about 1949 - 1952, too far back for either of us to recall clearly. After 1952, I went to work at WTWN, now WSTJ as a secretary/bookkeeper/copywriter, and occasional announcer if someone was unable to do their show. I remember being "Snowflake" a few times to fill in for "Santa" when he couldn't make it to the station to answer kids calling in on his special show at Christmas time, I filled in reading the financial reports a few times, and did some remotes with Don Mullallay for special events. It was all quite unprofessional for me, but lots of fun, with an interesting group of people to work with. Lucille and I remained friends over the years - she was my matron of honor when I first married in 1953, and I was her sounding board when she divorced years later. We had mutual friends who lived at the Colonial when she moved there a few years ago - but now I think we are the only two left from a fairly large group. We discussed that briefly yesterday - it is sad to not that so many of our old friends have passed away or have moved to nursing homes. We agreed we are fortunate to be able to go to lunch together and still enjoy laughing at some of our antics of years ago. The years have flown by and left us with so many memories - some good, some not so much, but they were good years as we worked, learned, laughed, and have ventured into our 9th decade, still friends.

And that's it for today. I hope it's a good one for all of you.