Learning Humility

	Learning Humility
	By Sean November 2001


	In the few weeks in November I have spent in the town of Irasburg, Vermont after my love of 25 years and one day was laid to rest I have some rich images from these mountains to tell the folks back in lake port city of Chicago, Illinois. The inhabitants were patient with stories from the big flatlander city of my love’s kindness and charity. Slowly they wove themselves into my heart and helped me learn to trust them. In small payment for their acts of helping through my torment – I return their stories back to both cities in a hope that the baggage of petty differences can be left behind.

	Irasburg is located in the Northeast Kingdom near the Westwood pile in East Overshoe. It was name after Ira Allen one of the Green Mountain boys that ambushed Burgonne’s troops and proved to be a major victory for the forces of revolution in our country. Seems that the Hessians and Indians after being whipped by the hillbillies of Vermont irregulars settled in and never wanted to move. Many people in Vermont lost whole town men population in the civil war but a few folks even today thought that the singing on the southern plantation was a sign of happiness with the state of slavery. But the Vermonters like Chicagoans did their best to preserve the Union, fought in WWI, WWII, Korean and Vietnam wars. Today however, many people in Chicago might even have a problem knowing where the state of Vermont begins.

	You know you’re in Vermont when you pick up the phone and have to place a long distance call to your neighbor. There are lots of signs on the highways and trails like “Takeback Vermont” and a few of “Giveback Vermont”. There is obviously some issue of proportion of the amount of Give and Take that still seemed to be unraveled. The inhabitants seemed reluctant to discuss the issue in my midst as I wrestled with matters of the great secret and the final chapter of life.

	Some houses are so clean that the Mother Mary would check the bottom of her sandals walking into the home of village housewives who would be apologizing for the state of uncleanness. Some of the fields are so crowded with creatures that a young man could feel a snake slithering through the arch of his foot as he made his way to bag a groundhog. Beavers were almost twice on the verge of extinction but if anyone would trap and kill them today they would be shunned far and wide. After three weeks of not watching any TV, I was struck by a major story after the national news of the mixing of red and grey foxes. It was a relief not to hear stories of murders, rapes, police and judges being bribed or involved in drug scandals.

	Some more woodsy neighbors raise elk to be returned for killing in deer season. I saw llamas hearding sheep as good as the cowdogs I grew up with. I visited one farm where the people raised llamas for spinning on old fashion spinwheels. They let me try my hand at spinning, chopping wood and learning how to build fires in the deep forest. It was excellent therapy and they needed kindling. Some swear on a stack of bibles that they have seen mountain lions. I personally only got to see a very large gray cat sprawled out on a hand made rug decorated with the drawing of two gray wolves. Black bear stories can be told by all. Bears have ripped the bark of birch trees in search for nuts, gorged themselves on ten gallons of abandoned fish. On one occasion there was a meeting in the woods of berry pickers with a large black bear and both parties in this startling encounter decided to skiddadle. I did not think to ask if it was the same bears in all the stories.

	The local grocery packs, cuts and sells deer meat to see the town through their winters. While Chicago can be paralyzed with over one inch of snow the people in these parts face 40 degree below zero in blizzards from late November to early April. On the day before I left there was five inches of snow that turned to slippery slush – this is called “angel’s dandruff.” Rural and townfolk alike put on suete for the flickers and chickadees to last through the cold. The town of Irasburg is located on top of a hill and when I asked for walking directions to the nearest ATM I was told – “oh its just down the hill a piece” and then in a muffled humorous tone – “best take yourself a lunch”.

	There is a lot of local color in Irasburg. One man was branded crazy because he goes out in the middle of his field and howls for the wolves but since they howl back – he is considered harmless. Another person swears he hit an alien from a space ship with his truck. The local authorities had to confiscate his rifle so he wouldn’t do any harm to himself or the outerspace aliens. While his stories are do not have currency with the rest of the town. Some people do swear that the spaceships have flown over the mountains and their source is from the New Hampshire.

	As I was recovering from the shock of my love one’s passing and getting ready to rejoin the civilization of Chicago I visited a local barber who was telling me about his trip to Los Vagas where he was surprised at this thing called a “credit card”. Up here our word is our bond and cash is fine too but plastic cards run through a computer – how impersonal. Here the barber told me everybody is either got a craft shop or is out painting the scenery instead of the town or writing the novel that will change the world. The novelist and artists are of course flatlanders and not much stock is put in the work until they have children born in the hills.

	I first thought that Irasburg was podunk u, the hicks in the sticks but the people in Vermont call their land – god’s country. Crime is rare although there are stories that Chinese, Mexicans and moonshine have crossed the border from nearby Montreal, Canada. In the windy city of Chicago we have 4 seasons but Vermonters have 6 seasons – mud-season and deer season are added to the traditional calendar. Jane and I grew up in the northern Appalachian plateau in Central New York but Vermonters don’t call their snow covered peaks mountains unless it takes more than one day to reach the top. When I asked one gentlemen about whether Vermontians used the maple sugar houses to distill alcohol, he told me “I have never been in a liquor store in my life”. Water witches abound and one person can successfully boast that he used his diving rod or dowser skills to strike wells more than 4000 times. There is an annual convention of dowsers, along with cowchip bingo celebration. Even the mother’s today are proud that they never went to a store to cloth their children and did this all by hand.

	I was surprised to see that really rural folk and townfolk eye each other carefully. The usual time period of ten years may pass before your neighbor notices you moved in and nods in your general direction, another 5 years for you to know their first name and just for measure another 5 years to agree to break bread together. Cookie or craft exchanges can reduce this vast period of suspicion to lets say 5 minutes. People in Vermont exchange favors instead of currency and it seems to have been working well for a long time.

	On my first visit a couple of years ago I was amazed when my love was leading me into a neighbors house to retrieve our dog brohde. She washed the dishes and had me dry and put them away. At first I thought that this was her new home as she was laying out the mail and cleaning the counters and refrigerator door and checking on any spoiled food. But this was the neighbors house that was keeping the dog warm until Jane returned from the airport to pick me up. Even words like ujamaa and being neighborly don’t come close to describing how a village can not need locked doors and everyone helps each other in a crisis. I kept having flash backs to Hilton’s Lost Horizon of Shangra La.