"Morning has broken…like the first day"
After the cloudiest June since 1903, with rain for 23 of 30 days, the coming of clear, sunny weather in the beginning of July was like the dawn of a new creation. I felt something akin to what my brother and other Oregonians experience when they glimpse the sun for longer than 10 minutes, which happens at least twice a year, on a good year. That’s how it felt on Monday, July 6, as I headed out from the parking lot at Northfield Mount Hermon school at 8:30 am, after having posted a Pure Water Ride flyer in the Blake student center, and taking some photographs of the stunningly attractive campus with a few early rising summer students purposely striding to summer pursuits, slicing through the morning mist off the nearby Connecticut River, and disappearing into the air-conditioned climate of one or the other of the beautiful brick buildings amply distributed around the expansive campus.
Riding away from the campus sooner than I really wanted to, the hum of my Honda’s 350cc was reassuring as I thought of the miles ahead. The sun was shining on my back, and it felt good.
Near Purple Meadow Road in Northfield, a fawn was about to cross the road, but fled back into the woods at my approach. He carried the sun on his back with him, the light dappled spots that fawns are born with to help them survive. It was great getting back on the bike after a long winter layover. Work schedule and poor weather had prevented me from beginning the ride earlier and today was the first time I had been on the bike since last November. I too, was fleeing the main roads and heading into little-used and even forgotten woodland lanes.
I missed a turn off Grant road in Halifax, VT. and stopped to check the map. As always I brought along the relevant pages from Delorme’s Atlas & Gazetteer, because it without them finding your way around the hinderland is hopeless. They show every road - even roads that no longer exist can be found in solid red lines and clearly labeled by name, even if no one can remember it. A good old boy, if that’s what you call a male Halifaxian about my age driving a pickup truck, and stopping to axe a stranger what he was looking for, axed me what I was looking for. ‘Woodward’, I said. He looked puzzled, got out of truck, and came over to help me look at the map. After a while we found it, ‘Woodward Hill Road’. Oh, he said, that bridge is gone, has been for years. He helped me find a way around and after wishing me a good day, was back in his truck and in his Halifaxian life.
Picking up the route at Old County Road, I was good for a mile, actually a little more than two-glorious sun and blue sky, white puffy clouds, wonderfully warm and fresh air. The kind of day that makes you feel glad to be alive and not at work. The road was getting narrower and narrower, and going slightly downward, had now come to a swamp-not too long or deep to cross - at least in the mind of an optimistic fool like the one who had just waded through it with the idea of walking up ahead to see if it was worth going through or turning back, but who had very soon grown tired of trudging in heavy wet boots and swatting at surprisingly belligerent flies and decided to go for it for no other reason than a kind of stupid tempting of fate and an unfounded feeling that on such a fine day, nothing much would go wrong.
Some kind Halifaxian had left some logs beside the road, not too big or too long to handle. Throwing a few of these in the deepest mud, and with the motor running, I walked the bike through, stopping only once, my heart that is, as the bike began to go downward faster than forward. An instantaneous but heartfelt prayer, an extra push, and a shiver of what might have been, and we were through.
The road did get better and soon I was back to civilization, at least the kind they have in Southern Vermont-which seems, to a suburban yuppie like myself, more like the kind that Daniel Boone started out with.
I took a short detour to visit Marlboro College and post a Pure Water Ride flyer there. Marlboro College (and I suppose its students) has an impressive academic record, but an unassuming campus. All white clapboard buildings packed close enough so that they could keep each other warm once the winter sets in, which probably happens a week before classes begin in the fall, or at least the students scurrying to and from classes. The campus fits in well with southern Vermont and its isolation could only promote an undistracted academia.
The population of Marlboro peaked in 1820 at almost 1300. In the 2000 census it was 978. Besides the college, the town hosts an annual music festival founded by Rudolph Serkin and the largest Civil War Re-enactment in Vermont. It was one of the first American towns to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush. A fact, which had I known it at the time, would have cleared my mind of the recurring image of the cigarette smoking, Hollywood handsome horseriding cowboy brought on by the town's name.
A few more roads that no longer existed, a few more missed turns and it was time for lunch. The General Store in north Wardsboro is well-stocked. You can find just about anything you might need there. I needed some lunch and got an Italian sub which turned out to be so ginormous that it was impossible to eat more than half of it. The General Store is as American as the fourth of July and celebrates it with gigantic American Flag on the roof and stars and stripes around the outside walls.
After lunch, I headed back. Just before I got to Purple Meadow Road in Northfield, a fawn crossed the road in
front of me. It was the same spot and I'll bet it was the same little guy. Had he grown more adventuruous during the day? I'd like to think so. And I hope I had too.
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