Vermont, Now and Then: It’s Been a Long, Strange Trip

The burbs, stockxchng.com

Happy New Year! Out with the new! In with the old!

Let’s party like it’s 1994–back when Howard Dean was governor; Ben and Jerry owned their Chunky Monkey, not Unilever; the Dog Team Tavern was still spinning its relish wheel and proffering sticky buns; and Taft Corners was mostly hay fields.

Though 1994 is really not that long ago, it definitely feels very last century. Since I moved here 15 years ago, the Chittenden County landscape–physical, sociological, cultural and commercial–looks like it has undergone a bad face lift.

Of course, there are those who will argue that Chittenden County is an anomaly. “The nice thing about Burlington is it’s so close to Vermont,” it’s been said. But for those who think that the Champlain Valley is not a microcosm of the state, or at least a bellwether, I suggest taking a good look around your own county.

Do the changes I see locally reflect what’s going on in the rest of the country, where the divide between the haves and have-nots is still widening? I’d say here in Vermont it’s a more subtle divide between the “Have mores” and “Have lesses”– the upscale and the downscale.

For the more affluent, Starbuck’s is the new Dunkin’ Donuts; Sushi is the new fast food; yoga, the new jogging; and meditation, the new happy hour. And for the rest of us Denny’s, snowmobiling and hunting will suffice. Hold the arugula, and pass the chicken pie!

Start with just our neighborhood, for example. While we live in a town with a very strong land preservation movement and plenty of open vistas, there are still some changes on our little corner of Mt. Philo Road. I guess you could say that we now have more than twice the carbon footprint, since the population of the private road adjacent to our small horse farm has more than doubled.

Where there used to be only three houses, there are now seven, four of them built in the last 15 years. While the neighbors are affable, more people means a steady stream of heavy equipment–road and driveway maintenance, fuel deliveries, lawn services, garbage trucks and almost daily visits from UPS and Fed Ex. Factor in two, sometimes three vehicles per domicile, 1.5 barking dogs a household and miscellaneous children and visitors and some days there is more or less constant activity.

Adding to the hubbub, traffic on the main road has increased exponentially. It’s now a popular motorcycle (the high-pitched Japanese kind) and bike-tour route. And during the week, the huge Mactrucks prefer it to Rte. 7– heaven knows why. We can’t ride our horses along Mt. Philo Road anymore to access the bordering fields and woods, because almost no one “slows for horses.” Their idea of slowing down is to keep or exceed the speed limit, crossing to the wrong side of the road, giving us a wide berth, but not much peace of mind. We often would see other equestrians riding by–but no more! Perhaps they’ve just given up.

One of the houses on our neighboring road is an especially notorious symbol of devolving Vermont, It’s a big Victorian repro that has had its share of troubled occupants over the years. Back in 1994, it was home to Jeffrey Nichols–the mother of all “deadbeat dads,” who made national news. We remember the time “60 Minutes” came looking for him.

The next resident was Bill Boettcher whose recent tenure at Fletcher Allen sent him from his big house to the Really Big House.

And speaking of big houses, housing developments are now everywhere you look, filling up empty fields along Spear and Dorset Streets with veritable McMansions. Whatever happened to smaller homes? Who needs that much space, with wall-to-wall marble and gourmet kitchens and Great Rooms? (More importantly, who wants to heat it!) In our funky old 19th-century house farmhouse, all our rooms are sufficiently great, thanks for asking.

No one can deny that the traffic has gotten worse everywhere, trying everyone’s patience and bringing vehicular rudeness to Vermont. It used to be unthinkable to honk your horn or cut off other drivers.

Now it’s more the norm, especially during the endless nightmare that was the widening of Shelburne Road, which has brought with it more quick stops/gas stations, motels, and big grocery stores (when

I first moved here, it was Grand Union or nothing!) than we could possibly need. And while Shelburne Road was less than picturesque 15 years, widening it did nothing to improve the view.

Sunset over Lake Champlain, stockxchng.com

And what happened to good old unpretentious American food, the kind Perry’s, Jake’s, Cactus Pete’s or the Sirloin Saloon served up—all gone out of business? Now on the dining menu are fast food and chains or swishy bistros–food with “’tude”–with precious names and fare (wilted spinach, remoulades and red-wine reductions). Where can you still find “a nice piece of grilled fish,” as our neighbor Bobby calls it, and a humble salad bar?

Bigger is better in public architecture also. The hospital, thanks to Boettcher, looks as much like the airport as the airport, maybe more. When I used to make a weekly commute to Washington, D.C., back in the days when there were no nonstop flights there, it was still one lone terminal building. Oh, I suppose we needed it, since the number of passengers has gone from around 450,000 10 years ago to just over 700,000 this year (thanks to Jet Blue). But the old airport had a certain homely Vermont charm after all those sprawling major hubs so large they should have their own zip codes.

Even the annual fall hunting ritual has succumbed to the 21st century. The red-check wool hunter’s garb has now morphed into super-camouflage, full Desert-Storm-type gear.

Could we say, perhaps, that this is overkill, considering the opponents are unarmed, helpless deer?

Which brings us to the biggest change–the big Kahuna of them all–Taft Corners in “Williston, New Jersey,” as one editorial writer (full disclosure, my husband) once put it. While we’d rather not go there, go there we must, mainly to buy horse supplies. For those who missed it, the sprawl that is now Taft Corners unleashed a huge controversy before it was finally permitted, literally and figuratively.

Could they build all those cavernous stores, and if they did, could the one lane road that was 116 handle the traffic? Could we really have a Walmart here in Vermont? Why, it went against our identity, our very Vermont-ness.

On one side were the people who wanted cheap goods, the more the better, on the other those who wanted to buy local, and preserve the open space that still remained. Well, okey-dokey, it was decided, we could have Walmart, and all the other huge soulless box stores, as long as it was “planned” development. Ah yes, that made everything just fine. Half of it is actually planned, and half isn’t. Honestly, can you tell the difference? And the so-called road improvements, merely created two lanes of bottleneck instead of one, still not adequate to handle the traffic to and from Dick’sBestBigBuyDepotMart & Beyond, especially on a Friday afternoon.

If the Taft Corners controversy happened now, would the newspapers even cover it? With all the Vermont papers mere shadows of their former selves, who’s watching our collective backs?

Oh, yes, and another change: There are fewer farms, unless you count Lang Farm in Essex–not a farm at all, of course, but yet another mall. Not much milking going on there.

And crime has gotten much worse. People are now forced to lock their houses and their vehicles. Gone are the days of leaving the car idling at the grocery, keys in the ignition, to run in and buy milk.

Even the wildlife has evolved–witness the wild turkey population in our pasture, often more than two dozen at a time, getting bigger and bigger every year and positively thriving. Some say the wolf has made a resurgence, mating with coy dogs to make bigger coys. Then there are the more frequent “catamount” sightings. Hmmmmm. Turkeys and predators. What does that imply about our changing Vermont culture?

Gone are the days of leaving the car idling at the grocery, keys in the ignition, to run in and buy milk.”

I’m not saying by any means that we might as well all just move back to New Jersey. There is still plenty of the old Vermont left. Subaru is still the state car; WDEV still has the “Radio Rangers” and Music to Go to the Dump By” on Saturday mornings; our maple syrup is still the best on the planet (sorry, Canada); the sunsets over Lake Champlain are still breathtaking; and Bernie is still Bernie–Senator Bernie to you.

The old Vermont continues to thrive in the guise of the local businesses that did not get swallowed up whole by the giant maw of Taft Corners. It may be that the old and the new can peacefully coexist long into the future. Vermonters are just contrary enough not to let the state get totally hijacked, but the Philistines are definitely making inroads. Just keep your eye on the giant descending New Year’s ball. In another 15 years, I really don’t want to have to say I told you so.

Barbara Ann Curcio is a former reporter and syndicated columnist for The Washington Post.