Category Archives: Uncategorized

Interviews with Frank Bryan, Elsa Gilbertson; informal talk with harvest dinner cooks

[middtube envs0350a-f08 mp3:rmckay_dwakefield_fbryan_103008]

In this interview, Frank Bryan of Starksboro talks in his office in the Political Science department at UVM.  He greeted us with a sort of hardboiled curtness that was not unfriendly, but had the air of an old Hollywood newspaperman.  “Go,” he ejected, as soon as we were seated and minimal pleasantries dispensed.  We were still fumblng with the record button.  Bryan here discusses:

0:40 length of habitation in Starksboro.

1:15 Story of moving to Starksboro in ’70.  Deer camp, one-room.  “Al Gore would’ve loved us.  Our carbon footprint was almost nothing.  One room, no telephone.”

2:20 “heartbreaking” to have to bulldoze some of the self-built additions that were shoddy.

2:50 “anyway that’s all just personal shit”

3:00 Sloppy VT construction

3:15 we build better now

3:55 “We’re so much better off than we were 50 years ago.”  This impacts “community in VT.”

Attributes VT rural growth since the 60s to “technology” enabling people to “live comfortably” in VT, whereas 1860-1960 it was “too cold, lonely and depressing”, which he describes rather poetically.

5:48 How Bryan got his cabin and land.

6:15 Career history.  Mentions multiple marriages

6:30 7 kids in all.  All but 2 in VT.  Kids’ careers.

7:30 asks Bryan about whether people “raise their kids to leave”.  He discussefs telecommuting, imagines a future where it dominates the economy.

9:30 Telecommuters in Starksboro.  “Quite a few” though we don’t have the stats by town yet.”  “This is important for any scholar of the potenntial for place and community.”

10:25 Bryan envisions “more local organizations.”  “People are slowly becoming – I think – satisfied with where they live.

11:19 Bryan imagines that we are “becoming an ancillary world, where most of us aren’t doing anything but organizing.  Takes fairly routine examples of automation as

12:20 Worries about the future economy of ancillary telecommmuters being “class-based.”

12:50 the “three groups” in all communities.  The small percentage of “down-and-outers” who don’t participate.  The working-class professionals, who’ve been there a long time and are the backbone of civic structure.  The newcomers, often more professional-class, who sometimes get involved but often defer to the locals.

15:00 A lot of the good programs around the school are populated mostly by the kids of professionals.

15:20 discusses own background as a working-class kid with little interest in such things.  Mentions childhood, working on farms.

16:18 On the “bedroom community” and civic engagement.  “I wouldn’t put a percentagve on it, but there’s enough so you know it’s there.”  “Sure it’s a problem, but… what are you gonna do?  “As long as the profession is the driving force, you’re gonna be in trouble”

18:00 rural isolation a privilege.  But in terms of carbon footprint, “the most responsible Americans are the ones who live in the trailer parks.”

18:30 The poorer kids ride school buses more.  Seems about to say something about “bias” and “transportation.”  “The bus system in CVU is called the shame train.”  Talks about how kids who have cars are able to participate more in co-curriculars.

20:50 “What do you think Starksboro can do to change that?”  Bryan hesitates.  “Maintain local institutions.  It’s “nice to hope that we can educate people the think that way” (i.e., to participate in the various things we’ve been talking about.)

21:30 “The real solution is one that’s not popular with either conservatives or liberals… and that is: decentralizing power to the locality.”

21:50 In Starksboro, about 10-12% of the registered voters show up to Town Meeting.  State average is about 10-15%.

22:47 “Why is it such a low percentage?  Fundamentally, it’s because we decide almost nothing at the local level.”

23:27 “The main thing is, the reason we’re losing community in VT is that the community doesn’t have to get together to solve common problems.”  “Local control” used to be a conservative value.

24:00 “In the 50s, when I grew up, the towns in VT were pretty much responsible for social welfare.  It was declining, and it had been since the 30s.”  But education especially was still locally controlled to the level of curriculum.

24:50 Pithy comment on democracy involving fighting.

25:19 “If you take anything from this interview, this is what’s key”: contradiction in liberals who “want more community” and yet want “the state to solve all our problems.”  Contrary to the early centralizing IT, IT now can be a locality-empowering force.

26:16 Imagines a locally-controlled taxation system.  The rationale for centralizing taxes was admin efficiency.  Now electronics could easily reduce those costs to almost nothing, Bryan claims.

28:40 Income tax would be the only local tax that could pump money into the infrastructure in Starksboro, because the property isn’t worth much and there’s no sales to tax.

29:35 In sum: Starksboro in the next 10-20 years.  “We have a good infrastructure of community-conscious people in Starksboro, so I’m optimistic about that.  But I don’t think we can do much unless we’re empowered.  So that’s kinda pessimistic.

30:10 Imagining a left-right coalition for local power, bringing together the communalist wing of old conservatism, and the new communalism that came out of the 70s.  Criticizes Gen X (though he doesn’t name them) for their excessive individualism and materialism.

[middtube envs0350a-f08 mp3:rmckay_egilbertson_110508]

[middtube envs0350a-f08 mp3:rmckay_harvest.dinner.cooks]

Interview with Norman Cota, daughter and grandaughter

[middtube envs0350a-f08 mp3:jcline_ncota_30027]

In this interview I talked with three generations of the Cota family, a family that has been in Starksboro for four generations. Norman, his daughter Amy, and his granddaughter Rachel were all willing to tell me their stories. The Cotas were one of the older farming families and Norman farmed on his family farm until nine years ago. It was interesting to see the difference in how each generation grew up and the changes that they saw in the town through time. From Norman’s perspective especially, there were many more wholesome activities in the past for youth to do and life involved a lot less hassle and stress. Amy and Rachel talked to me about the school system and its role in shaping the youth of the town.

25: Norman early life

1:45: Family Home

3:22: Sold the farm, talking of the farm

4:40: “After that happened [sold the farm], we had to go out and find jobs. So, I’ve been working on a neighbor’s farm bout two miles up the road, and I’ve been there now for nine years, on that farm, so. And I do part time listing work here too, so I work back and forth.”

5:16: Location of Farm, condition of farm

6:30 Amy growing up on farm, young life in Starksboro

7:30 Challenge of working away from Starksboro

8:20 Norman talking more about growing up and about changes in the times. “There was less stress.” “You enjoyed yourself more, less pressure.” Talk about changes in family life.

11:25 Amy talks about all the family gatherings she had growing up. Talks about difference now.

12:40 Amy’s brother who moved out of state and about Norman’s wife.

13:50 “[Now] salary wise, it takes two jobs to pay for your house.”

14:30 “You weren’t under as much pressure back then as you are today.” Intophilosophy on raising kids.

16:11: Rachel’s favorite things to do. A younger perspective on Starksboro.

17:05 Rachel’s brothers

17:38: Are your sons going to stay in Starksboro? “My older son would like to go to college and play on a soccer team.”

18:29 Employment in Starksboro.

19:03 Amy and her husband as high school sweet hearts.

19:35 Rachel’s perspective on family and certain houses. Tells family relations and interactions. Jack the cat.

21:25 Subdividing the farm between Norman and his siblings. Difference in ownership of land now and then.

23:00 Other families with farms. Clifford farm. Lots of the big families moved out.

25:35 Trailer parks and IBM workers who commute to Burlington. “They might be here two are three years, and then be gone because they get transferred to another plant.” Commuter culture and how they don’t integrate into the community.

29:28 Robinson School. Changes in school from teaching in a trailer to now. Changes in the school system.

32:06 Norman: “When I graduated from grade school up here, there was six of us!” Talk about numerical changes in school system.

34:00 Why is Robinson school a good school? Amy: “The teachers are very nice, they are very involved with the students and their family lives. They are very much into asking, ‘So how was your game last nigh? Did you win? Did you lose?’ . . . They are very into what the kids have done after school.” More discussion of teachers.

35:29 The responsive classroom system.

38:44 Norman: “I enjoyed school.” Norman was a good student. Went to college. Was going to be a surveyor, but ended up just working on the farm.

41:35 Norman joining the fire department. Talking about his many positions in the town.

45:00 Norman’s mother and late father.

48:30 Kids who get into trouble these days because they have nothing to do.

50:09 Drugs

58:15 Changes in farming and the life of a farmer. Norman:”I put in twelve hours a day, up there. . . I get up between two thirty and twenty minutes to three.”

Starksboro

Hey all,

I am driving to Starksboro tomorrow morning at 10:30- Chester and Christian and my sister should be tagging along, but I’m not sure about anyone else… As it is, we have 1 spot left since I haven’t heard back yet from Nathan or Robert.

See you all and Happy HALLOWEEN!

Alena

Interview with Jennifer Turner

[middtube nzucker mp3: jenniferturner_nathanzucker_10.21]

I interviewed Jennifer Turner on October 21st in her beautiful home in the hills surrounding Starksboro. Interestingly, she, like Caroline Camara, was influenced by the ocean in her life as an environmentalist and outdoors person. Our discussion ranged from the recycling program she helped start in Starksboro to her experiences traveling abroad.

0:30 Turner grew up on the Massachusetts coast, where she had a strong interest in swimming and fishing in the ocean. She became attracted to science through these interactions with the outdoors. She would later mention that school wasn’t a great outlet for her fascination with natural history and ecology.

1:20 After finishing college, Turner lived with a family on a farm in southern Vermont as a sort of homesteading experience. She learned to garden, run a woodstove efficiently, and operate a saw mill.

6:30 When she met her first husband in Vermont, they both discovered they had a great interest in boats and wanted to go sailing. The couple sailed across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, making it as far as Turkey. Turner remembers swimming with sperm whales in the Mediterranean as a special experience, although she admits that she and her husband didn’t get along well during the trip. However, the ancient cultures of Europe made a mark on Turner. “The richness of the culture was great for me to see,” she said.

12:00 After returning to the United States and separating from her first husband, she enrolled at the University of New Hampshire to study botany. She then met her current spouse, who was studying forestry at the time. The two then went to the University of Vermont in Burlington to complete graduate work in their chosen fields.

14:20 When they found a house in Starksboro, Turner realized that this was the perfect place to raise a family. The community was mixed, friendly, and safe.

15:40 In the late 1980s, Vermont passed a recycling law to reduce solid waste. Turner became involved in the local recycling program, which had limited funds and very little equipment. The effort slowly evolved until they could offer single-stream recycling, which increased the program’s popularity and efficacy.

24:30 Recycling is logistically difficult in rural areas with low population densities. First, many people still believe in the waste mentality and don’t see much difference between throwing something out and recycling it. Second, economic feasibility is limited because a hauler has to drive far to pick up a small number of items.

40:30 Turner’s daughter left school at the age of 15 to pursue alternative activities. She enrolled in a Folk School in Norway, which emphasized outdoor education and the mastery of traditional disciplines such as woodwork. This model of experimental education worked well for her daughter, and she then earned good money by working on several small dairy farms in rural Norway. When Turner visited her daughter, she “didn’t want to come home.”

50:35 As for Starksboro memories, Turner mentioned Gary Orvis. She describes Orvis as one of the main “characters” of the town. He is extremely creative with machinery and once made a wood-splitter that can handle seven logs at a time and place them on a conveyor belt for transport. His office is a collection of unusual equipment, grease, and cigarette smoke.

58:26 Turner recounted her experience winter camping at Ausable Lake in the Adirondacks. She used a poncho as a sail to travel across a frozen lake. “You go pretty fast,” she joked. We shared stories about various camping and boating trips in Adirondack Park.

1:04:50 As she gets older, Turner wants to develop her hobbies more. She mentioned forestry and woodworking as two activities she is currently pursuing. She has been working on creating trails for hiking and skiing.

1:08:38 We discussed the transition of Vermont’s agriculture from a traditional model to a boutique model that emphasizes sustainability and high-quality products. Turner emphasized the need to stay local and her joy at the expansion of farmers’ markets.

1:14:15 Turner would like to do some more traveling now. She wants to visit Greece again, as she feels each island has its own identity and a strong sense of local pride. Turkey is also on her mind, a place with a great diversity of landscapes and ethnicities.