RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,118
(try though we might)
This guy I was with, at
that train crossing, had
just bought a place, on Old
Hubbardton Road. It was
pretty cool. He and his
new wife had recently
bought it, almost by
accident, from some
family named Napoli.
Old-line, Italian Vermonters,
the Napolis had held this
place as their 'Summer'
home, since the 1910's
My friend, out one day
searching houses, had
heard about it in some
store he'd stopped in to
pick up another of those
real estate papers that get
handed out in small rural
areas, and usually have some
listings in the back and witty
blather, things for free, or
cheap farm and auction items,
etc., in the front section. The
store proprietor and he got
talking, and the guy said, 'If
you're looking for a house,
I maybe can help - got a
friend trying to sell one.' It
was pretty cheap too. So the
arrangements were made, and
he and his wife met the Napolis
and made the crazy trek way up
Old Hubbardton Road. They
even had dinner with the family;
a big food-reception. My friend
and his wife dove right in and
agreed to terms and bought the
place. I admit, it was a beauty,
for the high view and those grand
Vermont hills and hollows. The
house itself was small, and about
as basic as one could get, and
it was also about as exposed as
one house could be, perched
openly like that on a mountainside;
vulnerable to Winter winds and
cold. That was fine, but the one
thing overlooked, I'd think, was
the fact that it was, clearly,
spoken of as a Summer place.
They were to be year-round.
He had a job over Rutland way,
She was a nurse in some Rutland
hospital; and just the Winter
travel to and from was going to
be brutal - but besides all that,
and more important and urgent, was
the idea that that little 4-room hut
had no heat! Of course that needed
immediate installation - which
meant a contractor, a furnace unit,
a concrete slab to put it on, a
clear spot dug for the basement
access, a decent driveway, and,
Lo and Behold!, a needed well.
The very inadequate supply and
flow of water was not up to the
ready/steady use needed. I don't
remember the incidentals of all
this except for being told a few
times that, because of the elevation
and location, the attempt to find
'water' by he well-driller just kept
getting more and more costly as
he had to go more and more deeper
in the search for a tap-able supply.
He, at one point of near desperation,
even hired a douser - one of those
water-finding guys with the magic
stick - to better locate a good spot
to drill. I forget how it all ended up.
It wasn't my money, and I was glad
for all that. (They ended up living
there for only two years; later went
to California in disgust with the
long, drawn-out Winters).
-
They'd moved by in late June; we
got there in late July. I remember
the Nixon and Watergate crap being
everywhere; all those names - John
Dean, Ehrlichman, Haldeman, and
the rest. I'd go down and get the
NY papers each day. The previous
people had erected this really cool
thing, at some huge tree across the
way - it was sort of a seat, writing
table, desk, and podium, all combined,
made out of nice wood and nice
carpentry. I was in my glory, as one
could sit out there on a perfect, clear
day, and read, write, doze, draw...
whatever one chose. I loved it and
wondered what the Napoli story
behind it may have been.
-
There was another, kind of odd,
side story going on too. I mentioned
his wife was a nurse - regular RN
stuff, in the white uniform and shoes
and hat. She got in some sort of deep
trouble, during this time, for working
a small second job for 'Planned
Parenthood' in Rutland. I don't know
the details, but dispensing sexual
instructions, condoms, instructional
stuff and safety tips to Vermont's poor,
so they could stop having a million
kids each, was evidently a no-no;
frowned upon as some form of
unholy, anti Christian, population
control. It didn't set well at all with
her locals, her neighbors, or even
the staff she worked with. This all
surprised me, and, frankly, I'd never
much given thought to it, but she was
always going on about some book
she'd read, by Paul Ehrlich, titled
'The Population Bomb,' about there
being way too many people for the
planet, exponential rates of really
troublesome reproductions - by
apparently the 'worst' among us -
and all the trouble that bode for
the world. I guess nothing ever
came of it, for it's all still here
and there are more babies than
ever, but fingering the poor for
outrage was not supposed to have
been done. It eventually all went
away, and she kept her job, but
maybe she had to quite Planned
Parenthood; I forget. After all
I had just been through with
opposing the Vietnam racket, in
NYC, etc., etc., worrying about
'population control' as a subversive
act seemed really odd.
-
It seemed strange to me to see her
get pummeled for that - whatever
it may have been - while Nixon and
Kissinger - speaking of 'Population
Bomb' - were bombing to smithereens,
raining fire from the sky, more bombs
than in all of WWII, the villages, rivers,
paddies, and countryside, and people,
of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos,
both sides, all sides, under the most
foggy terms of 'political' reasoning,
from B-52's high up in the sky. It
was all too much for my own
comprehension. It seemed the very
context of it all was all a'jumble. I
had a friend, in Columbia Crossroads,
at that time, who fit that hillbilly
Vermont trailer-guy description
very well - a number of kids, one
bedraggled wife, a run-down trailer,
welfare and assistance, poor or
non-existent plumbing. Marginal
stuff for sure; in storms and snow
white-outs, locals would form
snowmobile brigades, bringing
needed food and supplies to those
trailer-types all around; and they
were numerous. I don't know if
condoms were ever airlifted to them,
but I doubted it. On the one hand,
concerned people were helping out,
and - on the Vermont other-hand -
the same people were taking some
sort of offense and oddly terming
it as a 'religious' objection. Even
more strange when I thought of their
country, without any qualms, raining
down bombs, death, and destruction
on the unwitting local dwellers of
the distant jungles below.
-
Try though we might, it
could never be made right.
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