Category Archives: One in a Thousand

On Heaven and Scrapple

One in a Thousand, ,

E.O. Schaub

I’ve got this idea that if heaven and hell exist, it would only make sense that they would be customized. You know- each eternity designed to suit the individual. For example, when I die, I’ll know I’ve been bad if I end up in Best Buy.

On the other hand, if I eat all my broccoli and balance my checkbook to at least the nearest ten- okay, twenty- dollars, and I stay at my children’s band concerts to the very end even when they are done participating before the intermission? I’m pretty sure I’ll end up on Sissy’s front porch, having an egg sandwich with scrapple and coffee.

The reason I say this is that right now, I’m doing just that. Sissy, for those unlucky souls who may not be acquainted with her yet, is the gifted chef who ran the Dorset Inn restaurant for umpteen years before selling the whole kit and kaboodle and starting over with a tiny little take-out kitchen in Middletown Springs, Vermont. “Sissy’s Kitchen” isn’t centrally located, isn’t particularly fast, and definitely isn’t cheap. You can’t even eat there- well not inside anyway- because state regulation prohibits sit-down service at her location.

Doesn’t matter. There’s just something wonderful that speaks to me about Sissy’s. Maybe it’s the fact that she hangs old, well-loved wooden kitchen implements from baling twine on the walls. Maybe it’s that wonderful warm, not-quite-mustard yellow she has painted the interior or the small, tasteful array of locally-crafted woodware and ceramics that are casually offered for sale in the shop’s nooks and crannies. Maybe it’s the large, central table filled with an army of home-baked treats under glass, or the large, creaky-comfortable chairs outside where you can sit and open up your take-out (of your own volition, of course) taking maximum advantage of the spotty sunlight and the company of the long-eared, low-bellied dogs who lounge about like they own the place- which they clearly do.

This particular morning the longest-eared dog had curled himself (herself?) into a furry, croissant-shaped ball on the cushioned chair next to me, having settled deeply in for a late-morning nap long before my appearance on the scene. He breathes heavily through his nostrils and every once in a while heaves a heavy sigh of contentment.

Meanwhile the smell of something new and delicious baking in the kitchen slowly begins to waft in our direction- muffins? Raspberry, maybe? This morning the porch is in shade, but the back of my neck is hit directly by a patch of sun, poking through the tree branches. I, too, heavy a heavy sigh of contentment.

My belly is full of dark coffee and freshly home-baked cibatta and warm, orange-yolked eggs, not to mention the ridiculously delicious pork and cornmeal concoction Sissy informs me is called “scrapple.” I watch the dogs with amazement at their morning’s work and think: this, for them, is all there is. This moment, this cushion, this spot of sun. Ambition? Stress? Criticism? If they had shoulders I imagine the dogs might shrug. The experience of Sissy’s, I think to myself, is about more than Slow Food- it is for me also about the pleasures of slowing down life.

As I gaze at them, sipping from the bottom of my white paper cup, the Zen masters let out a soft, light snore.

Me and My Black Thumb

One in a Thousand, ,

E.O. Schaub

Not so long ago, they used to make you raise your right hand and take the Freeman’s Oath to become a registered voter in Vermont. You know why, of course. It’s so they could see whether you have a green thumb or not.

Now, if you have ever made my acquaintance, when you shook my hand, you perhaps noticed that my thumb is a rather unsightly shade of black. Not coincidentally, I have a rather unfortunate talent for killing plants. Luckily, the kind people of Vermont have decided to overlook this massive character flaw and let me live here anyway, primarily on the basis of the fact that I bake a pretty mean cherry pie.

Nevertheless, ever since moving to Vermont thirteen years ago I have attempted to beat the odds and, perhaps, manage to grow a few things here or there when the gods of nature were otherwise occupied. I mean, what with global warming, catastrophic oil spills and frogs growing extra sex organs, you’d think I could slide a few swiss chard plants by without too much notice. But nooooooo. Rhubarb and zucchini seem to be about all I can grow- or rather- fail to kill.

Take last year. I was exceedingly excited when my husband Steve built two very lovely raised beds for me to plant my doomed vegetables in. I ran to the nursery and brought home several cheerful looking starter plants which would, in time, grow to become slightly larger plants. This, for me, was excellent progress.

The Fortress

So you can imagine my delight when my plants did not die. Okay, well the tomatoes did die. Or, at least, they got really yellow and sickish looking, and gave a very convincing impression of fully intending to die, but only after a prolonged illness, perhaps involving an expensive nursing home. After polling my local friends and acquaintances who speak plant, it was universally agreed that I had made the classic rookie mistake of actually buying and planting tomato plants. Ha! Apparently everybody and their pet cat knew that it was way, way, way too early to plant tomatoes and that the plants they put out around Mother’s Day at the local nurseries are, in fact, stunt tomatoes. Continue reading Me and My Black Thumb →

The Barbed Wire Fence

One in a Thousand

E.O. Schaub

This morning I was sitting in the drive about to leave when a friend passing by stopped. We had our car windows open and I leaned over and said, “Did you hear about—”

“Yes,” she said.

That’s what it’s like to live in a small town. And interestingly, it was instantly comforting. Today we are all thinking about the same thing: Matt Waite died yesterday.

It’s inconceivable, as any tragic, out-of-nowhere accident always is. All the more so because Matt was an active, healthy, solid guy. He was young, by which I realize I mean he wasn’t much older than me. He was a prominent community member, well-known and liked, dad of two bright-eyed girls, one of whom is in my daughter’s fourth grade class.

Although I didn’t know Matt well, I know some things about him: I know he occasionally liked to go to Vegas and gamble with his wife Kelly; I know he liked to go to Bike Week in Florida with his buddies where elaborate practical jokes would provide storytelling material for years to come; I know he had a big laugh and a wide, ready grin. He had no fear about standing up at Town Meeting and speaking his mind. Like my husband, he was surrounded by women in his household, and he seemed to have a good sense of humor about being in the minority.

Of course, when you’re a teenager you think that nothing can kill you; when you’re an adult you realize that everything can. Part of the trick about being a grown-up is that necessary suspension-of-disbelief required to forget that you could be tapped out of the big game of Musical Chairs at any time: no matter how comfortable we are in this skin, it is, after all, a loaner.

Despite this, virtually everything we do has to do with planning, maybe even more so in the country: buy wood pellets in the summer so this winter you’ll be warm… plant asparagus knowing you’ll harvest them in three years… plant a tree over there so you can have apples in ten… slather sun-screen on your kids so they won’t get skin cancer when they’re your age… what don’t we do for the sake of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow? We spend all our time trying to raise our kids, grow our plants, tend everything just right, all with the idea that we have some idea what tomorrow will bring, when of course we don’t. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a punctuation mark appears, ending our own personal run-on sentence just like that.

The ramifications of such a loss are surely incalculable. On her third birthday, my mother lost her father to a sudden heart attack, and that salient fact is as much a part of her as her love of animals and her laugh and the funny way she sneezes… like a tree that grows up in and around the barbed wire fence, it is a wound that may heal, but never goes away- the tree grows differently because of it. Now our town will grieve with Matt Waite’s family not only because we will miss Matt ourselves, but because we wish his daughters and wife didn’t have to have that terrible wound, the wound that will heal, but will always be there too- a part of them.

Next month our family will attend my children’s great-grandfather’s 90th birthday celebration. Today our next door neighbor went into labor. Here at our house, like a mother hen, I anxiously await the appearance of our now third-year asparagus… life goes on. But every day somebody, somewhere, is tapped out of the game, fair or not. Next time it really, truly, could be you- or much worse- someone you love. Next time- tomorrow, the next day, someday- that gaping wound could be, will be yours.

So. How do you cope with that?

“Did you hear about—” I started to ask her.

“Yes,” she said.

Today we are all thinking the same thing. And that, I suppose, is a start.