Don't Drink the Milk

I grew up in Vermont. I usually find a way to mention that in a conversation with a stranger. I find it disarms a lot of people. They think of Vermont as being a cozy little state with lots of maple syrup, farms and a ski slope and suddenly I'm an ambassador.

The fact is I have now lived in Connecticut for more years of my life than Vermont. But just as Carlton Fisk will always be a Boston Red Sox despite playing more games for the Chicago White Sox, so too will I always be a Green Mountain Boy. It's hard to sever the roots from the tree.

Vermont has always had its fair share of interesting characters but most people don't associate anyone other than Ben and Jerry as famous residents. They are actually 2 New Yorkers who bought their citizenship with pints of Chunky Monkey.

Ethan & Ira Allen are my favorite Vermonters. They were transplanted Connecticut citizens who took Fort Ticonderoga from the British in the Revolutionary War. We once ate dinner in Newfane at the same table the Green Mountain Boys supposedly used to plot their plan to defeat the Redcoats. The mushroom soup was delicious.

George Dewey (Admiral of the Navy) was a Vermonter as was John Dewey (philosopher) although they were not related. Joseph Smith and Brigham Young of Mormon fame were Vermonters for awhile. So was John Deere (tractors), Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Russian exile & Nobel Prize winner), and Robert Frost (poet laureate).

The aforementioned Carlton Fisk was born in Vermont (Bellows Fall) although he went to school in the upside down state across the Connecticut River. Folks are much more serious in New Hampshire. The state license plate reads, "Live Free or Die". Not surprisingly the 94th Military Police Company of the NH Army Reserve was one of the first units called up for the War in Iraq. As they boarded a C-130 cargo plane headed for Baghdad, one of the younger soldiers was heard saying, "You're shittin' me! Who the fuck thought that one up?"

Bill Lee moved to Vermont after retiring from Major League Baseball. Known as the Spaceman, Lee use to sprinkle pot on his Corn Flakes for breakfast in the morning. This didn't go over too well in the provincial city of Boston, but in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom they did the same thing at the volunteer fire department pancake breakfast. The Spaceman landed in the right place.

Abraham Lincoln's son also lived in Vermont. A chip off the old block, Robert Todd Lincoln was a hit at all the local parties in the late 1800's. The townies would get liquored up on stout and yell at Robert, "Do the Gettysburg Address!"

With real famous Vermont politicians such as George Aiken, Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur (he was a U.S. president), I always thought laying claim to a son of an icon was lame. But hey, we are just a bunch of country bumpkin who are easily impressed.

"You'll never guess who I had a beer with at the Turnbridge Worlds Fair."
"Elvis Presley's daughter's babysitter?"
"How you'd guess?"
"Heard 'bout it at the country store."
"Did they tell you about the rig her husband entered in the tractor pull? It's called 'Shit or Get Off the Pot' in honor of The King."

In addition to colorful characters and politicians of the past, Vermont has the most unique collection of Congressmen in the country. Up until James Jeffords flipped party allegiance in 2001, Vermont had 1 Republican Senator (Jeffords), 1 Democratic Senator (Patrick Leahy) and 1 Socialist Representative (Bernie Sanders). How is that for declaring your independence? No one party is going to dictate to Vermonters what is right for us by Jesus! They talk about the genius of Carl Rove? He hasn't won Vermont yet.

You can see how eccentric some of the famous Vermonters are so let me introduce you to the more rank and file. Last Thursday I read a USA Today headline about a group of Vermont farmers who refused to register their birds as required by a newly enacted law. The idea behind the registration program is to allow the government to quickly respond should an outbreak of SARS occur.

Most of the farmers at the town meeting unequivocally stated they ain't goin'ta give them flatlander Feds the name of one chicken! Some likened the animal ID program to a fascist plan - "the Nazi's did a lot of that" was an actual quote. Others stated this was "the 1st step in the government controlling everything". I thought the milk control and subsidy program was the 1st step in the government controlling everything; it has the word control in it.

Knowing that the threat of a pandemic flu is possible, you wonder why anyone would resist registering the feathered friends. Is it the spelling? I'll volunteer to help with that.

Maybe some of these stockman name their birds after the bad guys and would be tipping their hat as members of a militia.

"Well son-of-a-bitch will you look at this? He's got a rooster named 'Little Timmy McVeigh'. Mullen grab a flak jacket and a shotgun and go check out the farm on Oak Hill Lane."

If that's the case let's give them a 30 day reprieve so they can rename all the birds. We'll even send them a list of acceptable names - Foghorn Leghorn, Chicken Little, The San Diego Chicken, Donald Duck, Mother Goose, et al.

Hopefully with a few more open hearings and a grant from the Feds everyone will come to their senses and cough up the list. But I can tell you this, if an avian flu does break out and they trace it back to a farm in Newport City, Vermont, I am going to disavow my Green Mountain ancestry and become a Nutmegger. That is so long as I survive the pandemic.

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