Category Archives: One in a Thousand

27 Things I Never Knew Before Moving to Vermont

One in a Thousand, Radio

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E.O. Schaub

  1. How to plunge a toilet (really)

  2. What mouse droppings look like

  3. What a mouse nest looks like

  4. How m-u-u-u-u-u-ch I dislike mice (Remember Harrison Ford’s reaction to snakes in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Like that… but worse.)

  5. How to dispose of a dead mouse without suffering post-traumatic stress

  6. That real egg yolks don’t actually look and taste like styrofoam

  7. That a cow would actually make a really bad pet

  8. How to correctly pronounce “Mother Myrick’s” (even though it still sounds wrong) and what’s really in a Lemon Lulu

  9. How much I like just staying home and watching the bird feeder and gardening

  10. That birds are actually pretty cool

  11. That gardening is actually pretty hard

  12. How to make jam

  13. What the BEST thing in the world is: a hot cider doughnut

  14. What the most disappointing thing in the world is: a cold cider doughnut

  15. That showing up for the 5PM church supper at 4:50 means you’re late, (everybody knows it really starts at 4:30)

  16. That you can’t really say a polite hello in fewer than twenty minutes. Continue reading 27 Things I Never Knew Before Moving to Vermont →

Reborn on the Fourth of July

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“Reborn on the Fourth of July” originally aired on WAMC on July 4th, 2007.  Click on the WAMC logo to listen to the audio version of this article.

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E.O. Schaub

The fourth of July is coming— and it’s a good thing. This has been a tough year for our family, what with my father-in-law’s passing from cancer in December, the requisite bout of seemingly endless winter illness that comes of having two small, school-age children, and a local economic climate that is causing everyone we know to rethink whether staying in the sticks is really worth it… or even possible.

I’m reminded of the local joke about “Moonlighting in Vermont.” Despite the fact that a Vermont existence sounds idyllic to folks who live elsewhere, the reality is often something else again. Never mind the hard winters… almost everyone we know faces a never-ending struggle to make living here make financial sense. As my husband likes to say, it’s hard to enjoy the famous Vermont “Quality of Life” if you’re working 24 hours per day.

But then, just when we seem ready to despair, and pack up our assorted belongings, kids and animals for more lucrative and suburban climes, summer always seems to arrive just in time. Continue reading Reborn on the Fourth of July →

Visiting the Great Root Bear

One in a Thousand, ,

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I’m not sure what it says about me that I asked for- and got- a rotating black plastic composter for Mother’s Day (Woo-hoo! Party at our house!) but it only seemed fair that when Father’s Day rolled around, my husband should get what he wanted: a family trip to the A&W.

 

This is just a little more complicated than it might at first sound, because the nearest, and frankly, the only A&W we know of is located in the summer tourist town of Lake George, a good forty-five minute drive away from our home in Vermont. As it happened, this was good, as it gave us the opportunity to have a lengthy conversation with our four-year-old as to whether a root beer float constituted a dessert or a beverage, what in fact root beer was, and whether she could have a lemonade too (no). This was followed by a conversation with our nine year old as to why it was okay to eat this fast food.

 

“I thought fast food was bad,” she said with that wonderful knack kids have for distilling everything you’ve ever told them in all it’s infinite subtleties down to a single blunt point.

 

“Well yes… it is…” I said, wondering for the four millionth time what I was going to say and whether my anticipated explanation would really make logical sense, or simply be fodder for the “my-parents-were-big-fat-hypocrites” therapy sessions some decades from now. “Well. The thing about fast food is that it is not good for you. And so we shouldn’t eat it all the time. But this is a special restaurant that is Daddy’s favorite. So this is a treat.”

 

And how. For a family that defines McDonald’s as “Convenient Public Restroom,” this was big stuff. Continue reading Visiting the Great Root Bear →