Author: Judy Boardman

In 1953, I was 5 years old and anxiously waiting to start first grade the next year. There was no kindergarten, no Head Start, no play schools, so you just waited until you were 6 and could start first grade.

Here I might add that in Athens, Vermont, there was no bus, so transportation was walking and in good weather biking.

My granddaughter was here the other day, which got me to thinking of what she has been privileged with at 5 years of age. In ’53, there was no TV, no internet, no cell phones (for my family anyway), no computers, tablets. You get the idea. We had what is now called a “landline,” which the line part was shared with about five other houses. Every group had at least one person who had the time (or took the time) to monitor the calls. Everyone had a different ring, so you would become accustomed to who was getting a call and I guess you would decide if you should listen!

We were a one-car, one-bathroom family, a washer with no dryer, no dishwasher. (My sister and I became the dishwashers and the clothes dryer by helping hang them on the line or, in bad weather, the wooden bars near the stove.) There was still snow in 1953 but no snowblower, just shovels for us, and Grandpa would plow with the tractor. The insulation at our house was lacking so hay bales and piles of leaves went around the foundation. The storm windows were put on every fall and removed in the spring.
My mother had a huge garden and would can, pickle, and store up everything we needed in that line for the winter. I don’t recall having a store-bought vegetable, pickle, relish until I was 13 when we left the farm to move five miles to Cambridgeport, where there wasn’t room for such a big garden. I remember about that time we were “gifted” with a loaf of Wonder bread! Mother always made her own bread and rolls. As kids we were thrilled with that loaf of store-bought! How mixed up that was?? My uncle tapped five trees and Mother would boil the sap and get about three gallons of syrup. In her “free time,” she made a good share of my sisters’ and my clothes. My two brothers wore jeans and shirts, and they were bought or handed down (can’t recall).

I should mention here that Mother was a bookkeeper in a retail store in Bellows Falls while doing everything she did for us at home. I get tired just thinking about it!

I won’t be around to see what another 70 years will bring and I guess, being truthful, I don’t want to!

DO I REMEMBER 1953?

Not really. I was twelve years old (now you know how old I am), taking piano lessons and ballet lessons, riding my bike all over town sometimes with someone sitting on the seat or handlebars, roller skating, playing stick ball and jump rope in the street in front of our house, and getting ice cream from the Good Humor man when he came by.

My father drove a 1947 Dodge, and when he had two weeks of vacation, we headed to Vermont. By then, we discovered The Pines in St. Albans Bay where my father’s employer had a camp. He had some connection to St. Albans. My father rented a camp for the summer, and I spent the days on the lake, biking up to the Bay to the store for ice cream and watching ball games on Sunday mornings in the field next to the camps.

We had a beagle named Buttons. Buttons was still around when I met Gael. Gael didn’t like Beagles or Bassetts. I think Clark Wright’s parents might have owned one and it bit Gael once, so he said. He didn’t like horses either. One bit him once, so he said.

It was a good time to be young.

I’ve been thinking about my early memories of the VAE. Gael and I weren’t married — just dating — when on occasion we would go to the VAE meetings at the Lincoln Inn in Essex Junction. I remember Pev Peake being there, because by then he was a good friend of Gael’s. Probably most of the others are gone now with the exception of Lloyd Davis. There was always a collection of old cars in the car park, a number of them being someone’s daily transportation.

Fast forward a few years to the summer of 1960. We hadn’t been married but a few weeks and living in St. Albans when a good friend, Mahlon Teachout, stopped by. The next thing I know, Gael and Mahlon had left to look at a fire truck in St. Albans somewhere. Little did I know then that that would be happening with regularity in the coming years. I guess I could have called myself an old car widow. Well, the two of them bought this fire truck, an American LaFrance fire truck, and proceeded to take it to Mahlon’s father’s shop in Colchester. They spent many hours there doing something or other, but within a matter of weeks, the fire truck became a speedster with just a seat, gas tank, and right-hand drive steering wheel, four wheels, etc.

It eventually came back to St. Albans, and we had a great time driving it around. Was it registered? Probably not, but I don’t remember. That was so many years ago when license plates got moved from one vehicle to another. I’m sitting here looking at a picture of it. Quite a thing. We took it to the Stowe Show in 1960 and that was my first memory of the Stowe Show. No trailering this beast. We drove it. What fun! Then, at one car meet at the fairgrounds in Essex that the VAE held there for a while, the track was open to folks to try out their old cars. Gael and Mahlon did just that and ended up tearing the track up, so they were asked to leave.

The next year we moved to Underhill, along with a 1934 Chevrolet Sedan (Edward), Gael’s Willys Knight, a 1927 Federal Truck, and the speedster. Eventually the speedster ended up in Barre, and then I don’t know what happened to it, but I have photos of it along with the registered number plaque and some great memories — memo- ries of the speedster and the early days of the VAE.

It was a Friday, and someone asked me what I had planned for Saturday. My answer was….going to the dump. Wasn’t that what everyone did Saturday morning? Not anymore, I guess. But being “old school,” that’s what was on my agenda to start the day. One of my earlier memories of living in Underhill was going to the dump. We did have a burning barrel, but you also needed to go to the dump, and this was before plastic bags were popular. The first Green Up Day had paper bags to use. I still have one in the cellar. Folks with enough land usually had their own dumps. There are a few on our property. One even has a few old car parts and a rusty car body. 

Going to the dump one morning shortly after we moved to Underhill, I met Ellie Cook, who was to become a good friend. She had a pickup truck with a dump body. Boy, was I envious! Our dump consisted of a bank where you threw your trash over the edge. People would go to the dump and shoot rats, popular sport back then. Every once in a while, there would be a fire and all the fire engines (trucks?) would head to the Dump Road to put the fire out. If you heard the fire whistle, if it wasn’t Tuesday at 7:00, chances are they were headed to the dump. 

I think our oldest daughter’s first word was “garbage,” and when Gael’s grandmother would come to visit when she was in her 80s and 90s, she always liked to ride along with us to the dump. In the late 80s, the selectboard was looking for someone to operate the bulldozer at the new dump location. By then, the dump had moved 

further up Dump Road and the garbage had to be buried. Knowing Gael could operate a bulldozer, he was asked if he could help until the town found someone permanent to do the job. He offered, and then every Saturday he would head to the dump with his truck. Like many of you, he collected stuff and brought things home that he could use. He eventually left the pickup truck home and started taking the Diamond T truck. 

A few months turned into a few years and the dump began being a gathering place for the locals. Arsen Potvin, or was it Marcel LeGrand, would bring a six-pack of beer and Ed Farmer would bring lunch. Wendell Metcalf was always there too. Gael would hang the American flag from a tree when he got there. And he started a 

garden where people who were getting rid of lawn ornaments and bits of outdoor things could place them. I think it was even fenced in. This is where a great deal of recycling happened. Recycling…….something people have been doing for generations! 

Eventually the town dumps had to close in the early 90s, I think. The rats scattered all over town and people moved on to the newer ways of getting rid of garbage. Many people have their trash picked up at their house for a fee or go to the recycling centers. In Underhill, there is a fellow who has a location on Route 15 in Jericho called At Your Disposal. He is open on Saturday mornings from 8 – 12. He has three dumpsters: one for recycling, one for trash, and one for metal. He has a place for food scraps too. He has lived in Underhill for a long time and knows everyone. Going there is almost a social event, like the old days. I get to visit him and anyone else that happens by, and if there is a bit of gossip to hear or pass along, that’s all good too. Gerry Adams is always there with a bag of cookies made by his wife Sue to give to Nate. 

So, to answer someone’s question What am I doing Saturday morning? You will find me at the dump, and I’ll check out what has been tossed into the metal dumpster. You never know what good stuff has been discarded by a neighbor. And WDEV even has a radio program Saturday morning called….”Music to Go to the Dump By.” 

I was talking to a nice (cute) young man who is doing a little logging here on the property. He was saying that he had to go to Richmond to clear a lot of blowdowns in someone’s sugarbush. I think of March as sugaring season, but some people have already made syrup, so I guess it’s all weather related. It got me thinking about when we moved here in the sixties. The farmer who lived here had a sugar-house out back, and you can still find his buckets in the woods when out walking. The old sugarhouse has collapsed, and I’m not sure if I could find it today. 

A neighbor down the road has a growing maple  business and keeps increasing the number of taps by thousands every year. He taps the trees on my hill across the road and recently tapped a neighbor’s 400 acres. I got a ride through the sugar woods in the fall with his sister, and she showed me where she found the remnants of an old sugarhouse and arch deep in the woods. According to the Beers Atlas of 1859, there were a few houses on that piece of land that are no longer there. 

Everyone remembers when the sap buckets would appear on trees along the road and on people’s lawns. Does anyone use buckets anymore? It’s turned into a high-tech business. Sign of the times. 

When we moved here, there was a retired priest that lived a mile down the road, Father Spear. He grew up in Enosburg on a farm, and when he bought 100 acres on the English Settlement Road, he tapped a few trees near the house. We were given a pony back then that we couldn’t keep in a fenced-in area, so she wandered around the neighborhood. Fortunately, there were only a few houses on the road then, so it wasn’t much of a problem, and Father Spear always enjoyed seeing Ginger show up at his house. 

Except when he had buckets on his trees. Ginger knew when he hung up the buckets and would wander down the road to his house and drink the sap out of any bucket that didn’t have a lid on it, then  meander back home, walking in the middle of the road. Always when the mailman was trying to get to our house. Ginger wouldn’t budge and just kept walking in the middle of the road. I found it humorous, but Wendell, the mailman, didn’t. 

We had a similar experience here when the kids hung a few buckets around the house. Our goats would drink the sap out of the kids’ buckets. The kids gave up. I wish the sugarmakers well in the  upcoming season and hope Mother Nature cooperates. I look forward to the neighbors having their Open House in March. 

Here we are once again, December, and the upcoming Christmas holiday. Thanksgiving is over and it’s all about leftovers and pumpkin pie for breakfast. Now it’s the craziness of Christmas. The grandchildren are all adults now and the days of board games and new mittens are a thing of the past. Now it’s gas cards and Visa cards. One stop shopping at the local grocery store. I like that. And no wrapping boxes. I’m beginning to sound like a grumpy old lady. Well, I guess that’s what I am. So be it. 

Looking back on all our Christmases, one thing Gael and I agreed on from the get-go was trimming the Christmas tree on Christmas eve. It’s what his family did and what my family did. For a few years I believed Santa trimmed our tree. Our first Christmas after we were married, we trimmed our little tree on Christmas Eve with the help of P.F Peake. I think I have pictures of that. Gael gave me an Electrolux vacuum cleaner that year. The next year it was a belt sander. But that is another story. 

When we moved to Underhill, I started cutting our own tree. I don’t remember much about the trek into the woods, but I do remember going across the river and up on the side hill across from the house. How I got there, I’m not sure, but I dragged a tree back to the house. A few years later, we 

purchased the property where we are now, and I had trees everywhere to cut, and they were easy to get to. I do remember taking walks in the summer and marking future trees for cutting, forgetting that we might get a good dumping of snow early in December. I did have to scramble then. In the process of driving back and forth on our road every day, I would spot good trees close to the road. There were 

only a few houses on the road back then, and people didn’t post their land the way they do now, so I would carry a saw with me just in case I spotted the perfect tree. Fast forward to Christmas eve when the kids finally went to bed, we would bring the tree in and secure it with anything we could find. In a few years the kids were old enough to help trim the tree. My mother would come out, and she and Gael’s mother were the tinsel people. I would read The Night Before Christmas to the kids from a book that I had when young. My name is written in the front. I still have it. 

In recent years, because all of our good trees have grown too big, I actually buy a tree from the local Boy Scout troop. I don’t know if I will ever get a fake tree, but the friends that have them think it’s great. Gael always thought a table tree would be good. I may be headed that way. We’ll see. Fruitcake, anyone? 

A while ago, when the woodstove was going 24/7, which meant I couldn’t do any spring house cleaning, and we were dealing with mud season, I decided to do something with the mess in the cellar. We had accumulated stuff from Gael’s grandparents’ house, Gael’s mother’s house, my parents’ house, and our own personal pile (sound familiar?). It was getting pretty bad. You really have to be in the right mood to tackle something like this. So I acted quickly when that mood hit me.

I discovered a lot of stuff I never knew was down there and found some interesting three bud vases for old Volkswagens, for starters. I started asking people if they had ever heard of Borgward and, much to my surprise, only a few people had.

Then, behind boxes I found Gael’s collection of comic books that had been through a few floods in the cellar. Unfortunately, most of them were beyond saving. I did salvage one…..a 1953 Donald Duck comic book.

Donald Duck was one of my personal favorites. How many times has someone told me something was worth a lot of money? I went on eBay and found the same comic book for a mere $4.95. Not going to get rich selling that.

I pulled out from the bottom of some shelves a trunk that must have belonged to Gael’s grandmother, and it was filled with women’s clothing from years ago. I’ll save that for another time. Another thing I found was my toy gun and holster that I cherished when I was quite young. I was a big fan of Roy Rogers back then and would go to the matinee on Saturday afternoons with friends and my bag of popcorn.

I ended up throwing away a lot of things that were full of mouse droppings or sunflower seed shells from many years ago, gathered up all the canning jars that seemed to be everywhere and got them all together, old bird feeders and suet feeders — some I tossed and some I saved — broken things that would never be fixed, magazines that were taking up too much shelf space. I did save some boxes with AACA magazines and Bulb Horn magazines from years ago. They were too heavy to move, so they are still on the shelf.

I discovered an old record player, an old typewriter, an old adding machine, one of those old set tubs that women used to use with wringer washers, a big floor scale with weights. I also organized all the Christmas decorations that seemed to be spread all over. They are now in one place on another shelf.

Speaking of shelves, many years ago a few people got some old shelving that came from the local Grand Union store when they were remodeling, and one wall in the cellar is lined with those shelves. They are great because they are deep and can hold large boxes.

I was able to reorganize my gardening supplies, the painting supplies, the pet supplies, and can now walk down there without feeling overwhelmed. There is still much to do, but it was a good start.

Thank goodness for pickup trucks and recycle centers where I unloaded many truckloads of junk. Warm weather finally came and my cellar cleaning is now put on hold, but at least I made a dent in the cellar clutter.

Well, another Town Meeting Day has come and gone without a physical meeting to go to. It just doesn’t feel right. Let’s hope next year we’ll be back to normal, whatever that is. 

I remember the first Town Meeting I went to. We hadn’t lived in Underhill very long, and it was all new to me not being a real Vermonter yet. The meetings were held at the Town Hall, and we walked up the road to the Elementary School for the pot luck lunch. I walked with some old guy who was telling me he always started his tomato plants on Town Meeting Day. Being new to the veggie garden thing, I went home and planted some tomato seeds. By May they were so long and leggy, I tossed them out and bought some nice tomato plants that were all set to put in the garden when the time came. 

The Town Hall had a wood stove which was going for the meeting, and it was so hot people moved their chairs away from it. The Underhill Ski Bowl was open, and people would leave their kids off to ski. When the kids had had enough, they would walk — yes, actually walk — down to the Town Hall. If I remember correctly, Clark Wright talked about sitting up in the balcony as a kid and watching the whole process. There was the year that folks in the Town Hall noticed a house nearby was having a chimney fire, so the volunteer firemen left abruptly to take care of that. 

We had a resident artist in town for many years. He and his family lived in the old Green Mountain Academy in Underhill Center. He was known for making the best dandelion wine, and I still have the recipe he gave me. For years, he would sketch drawings for the covers of many town reports. One, in particular, had a sketch of town meeting, which included a lot of old timers, the interior of the Town Hall, and the moderator. A great drawing. I must make a copy of it and identify some of 

the people I recognize before I forget who is who. 

Gael was moderator for a few years. It was back when the town started growing and the Town Hall was getting too small to hold our meetings there. The only other place that would accommodate all of us was the local middle school, which is located in Jericho. That didn’t set well with Gael. There was something wrong with having Underhill’s Town Meeting in another town. So he politely(?) declined when asked to be moderator the following year. 

The luncheons that followed the meetings were always something to look forward to. I was always 

involved in the luncheon preparation and cleanup, so in recent years I was always in the kitchen instead of the meeting. I would hear what went on at the meeting or what didn’t go on while eating lunch with friends and neighbors. I was a ballot clerk for many years too. I always took a vacation day off from work to do that. For years I knew almost everyone, but not anymore. Times change. I could always count on the same women to come in with their knitting and the same people that would have writing on the pages of the Town Report concerning things they wanted to ask about. Sometimes there wouldn’t be much discussion about anything and the meeting would be over quickly; other times it would continue after lunch. 

Tomorrow I will go and vote at the Town Hall, see a few folks there, and go home. The weather sounds good and the roads should be fine. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next year. 

I’ve had a house full of family members visiting this fall, and with all these people came 4 dogs. Now, I must say all the dogs, along with my old dog, got along really well. One thing that helped was the fact that I have a doggie door next to the back door. Unfortunately, 2 visiting dogs never figured out how to use it. I have forgotten what it is like to have to open the door whenever a dog wanted to go out or in. What a nuisance. We originally installed the door for a dog we had many years ago. We were both working and the dog, Phoebe, was afraid of thunderstorms. The doggie door allowed her to go in the house when the weather got bad.

A few years ago, I came down in the morning to find a sweet little beagle sleeping on the couch. I had never seen this dog before. After making a few phone calls, I put her in the car and drove around the neighborhood, but no one knew who she belonged to. I finally found a family that just moved into a house down the road; the dog was theirs. She came back to visit several times after that. Sweet dog.

We had a cat that used the doggie door too. Steve Dana gave us a cat many years ago named Rosie. Rose liked chipmunks, live ones. We had it down to a good system. Rosie would bring a chipmunk in the house, drop it, I would quickly barricade doors, open the back door, get a broom, put Rosie in another room, and chase the chipmunk out the back door.

There are also the times in warm weather when the windows are open at night that our dog (or dogs) would hear something outside and run out the doggie door only to bark and bark and bark, waking everyone up. This is when I would get the dogs inside and put the sliding panel in that closes the door, not letting anyone out.

A neighbor has a huge St. Bernard, and this dog has a doggie door that a bear cub could walk through. It has never happened, but I have heard stories about raccoons using doggie doors, and if a racoon can, a skunk can too! Not a pretty thought.

Our dog, Dixie, likes to walk down the hill to the neighbors’ house to go swimming in their pond. They love Dixie. Everyone loves Dixie. She has a wonderful smile and is very fond of dog biscuits. After her swim, she uses their doggie door to go inside to visit and maybe look for a treat before walking back up the hill.

Sadly, Dixie is getting too old to do that anymore. She would rather just nap in the house now.

The other day some of the visiting family finally left and took with them their 2 dogs. We are now left with just 2 visiting dogs plus our own. Unfortunately, one of the dogs is one that doesn’t know how to use the doggie door. Good grief!

It’s that time of year again, when I feel overwhelmed with chores. This happens every year about this time. What few spring cleaning chores I feel I need to do in the house always have to wait until mud season is over. 

Muddy boots and muddy dogs make it difficult to accomplish much in the house and I usually want to wait ‘til I’m not running the wood stove 24/7. So, I put these housecleaning projects on the back burner and go back to my book. The problem with that is, once mud season is over, I wander outdoors and here is where I am overwhelmed. The yard is a mess, with leaves that never got taken care of, thanks to the oak trees that don’t drop their leaves until I’ve put the rakes, etc., away and little branches that have come down when the wind blew. 

Then there are the ruts from vehicles driving over soft spots and leaving a nice mess on the lawn. There is the remainder of the wood on the back porch that needs to be moved so I can put the furniture back on the porch, but I can’t do that until the wood wagon gets welded or the manure is removed from the back of the truck. Can’t do that until the lawn dries up a bit more. The weather becomes a factor. We get four inches of snow and the wood stove is back in use. The snow then melts but the lawn, once again, is too wet to drive over. On a warm sunny day I’ll start to notice all the things that need doing…another list to start. 

Clean gutters, reseed places that got dug up because of the snow plowing, rake stones that are on the lawn by the side of the road, repair things, paint things, replace things. 

The list goes on and on. Is the lawn mower ready for mowing? Does my little tiller start? Is the tire flat on my garden cart? Are my garden tools sharp? 

Do I start bringing in the bird feeders (bears)? Snow tires taken off? Suddenly the spring housecleaning chores get crossed off the list. They can wait until next year. Again. 

Then, one day I notice the colts foot along the road is in bloom and I start looking for the dutchman’s breeches. A neighbor stops by and tells me that her daffodils are ready to bloom and I discover the trillium in bloom. 

My wandering around outside often finds me in the old chair down in front of the barn where I’ll sit while organizing my thoughts. This is where I meet neighbors out walking and enjoying those early warm sunny days and everyone’s dogs are out wading in the pond and puddles. If I can cross one thing off one of my lists, no matter how small, that makes my day. My spring season anxiety diminishes and everything starts looking a little better. 

The mud on the couch from the dog’s feet will dry and get vacuumed . 

No big deal.