Monthly Archives: June 2023

A Road Trip Beyond Expectations

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But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
          Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
          For promis’d joy!

Robert Burns (1759-1796; considered to be the National Poet of Scotland; from his “To a Mouse”)

Without a doubt, you’re familiar with the poetic lines, “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go astray,” even if you don’t know that Robert Burns penned them.

The lines express a universal truth. Yet, many people have trouble accepting it. Or, maybe, they simply have trouble admitting it when their meticulous plans go awry, sometimes dreadfully so.

Down through the years, it’s happened to me so often that I can accept the poem’s truth readily. More important, I don’t mind admitting it when my best-laid plans flop.

My recent trip to Vermont is a perfect example. I planned it way back in March, just as soon as I knew that my edition of Green Mountain Stories would be launched in Burlington on May 25 and again in Brattleboro on May 30.

I decided that it could also be a much-needed vay-kay for me and my dog Ruby.

But let me ask you this. Have you ever gone on a 10-day road trip with your furry, four-legged best friend, alone with no other person traveling with you?

If so, you know already what I had to learn the hard way: it’s not really your road trip. It’s your dog’s. As I made my careful plans, it became obvious to me that everything was being built around Ruby’s needs:

● How far could she ride in a day?

● Would the hotel mid-way up and mid-way back accept a dog?

● Would the VRBO home rental in Burlington accept a dog? What about a yard so that Ruby could play?

● Would the VRBO home rental in Brattleboro accept a dog? What about a yard so that Ruby could play?

Those were my big concerns. I won’t bother you with the small ones because just a few days before my trip, my best-laid plans fell apart.

It became clear to me, to Ruby, and to our veterinarian that she would be happier staying at a pet spa rather than staying stressed out for such a long trip.

By then, it was too late to change any of my lodging arrangements. The cancellation windows had closed.

● Yeah. It would have been great to stay in swanky downtown hotels and walk to restaurants and nightspots.

● Yeah. It would have been great to fly to Vermont. Or, maybe, drive to DC’s Union Station and journey by Amtrak.

But those options were never part of my Rubyesque best-laid plans. Now it was too late. Fine. I knew that the book launches would go well. As for the rest of the road trip without Ruby, I was determined to make the most of the situation.

At that point, I had no great expectations. None. But that was okay, too. Sometimes life gets better when we expect less. And so it came to be on this trip. My serendipitous encounters took me far greater distances than the distance I would travel. Let me share a few with you.

By the time that I reached Hazelton, PA–three hours or so from my home in Edinburg, VA, driving North on I-81–it was as if I had stepped back into early Spring. The forest canopy was see-through thin, and the leaves were so small, so new, so filled with promise that I immediately started reciting to myself, aloud, for no one else was around to hear, Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

I love that poem on so many levels, not the least of which is knowing how much effort Frost put into revising it. It didn’t spring into existence as the exquisite 8-line octave that we know. The revision history of the poem–even my sketchy recollection of it–fascinates me because Frost maintained that he did not revise his poems a lot. Here’s how he put it:

A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and having carried the poet with it (“The Figure a Poem Makes,” Collected Poems, 1939).

Frost might disagree, but it seems to me that he worried “Nothing Gold Can Stay” into existence. Let me explain. It started out as three octaves, for a total of 24 lines. More important, the original title was “Nothing Golden Stays.” Well, hello. Duh! Of course, nothing golden stays. Golden is a characteristic. It’s not the real thing.

But after four or five needed revisions, Frost distilled 24 poetic lines into the 8 that we enjoy today, and he changed golden to gold, knowing fully well that if nothing gold can stay we had all damned well better sit up and take notice, especially considering that even Eden sank to grief.

I could go on and on about this poem, but if I do, I’ll not be able to share other parts of my road trip that exceeded expectations. I had better put the pedal to the metal.

Wow! Two asphalt-hours are in my rear-view mirror, I didn’t get a speeding ticket, and I’ve reached my trip’s mid-way destination, headed north: a hotel in Johnson City, NY.

Approaching the city, I was thrilled beyond expectations to see a sign: HOME OF DAVID SEDARIS. Sedaris is one of my favorite writers, yet I had no idea that he was from Johnson City. Imagine that! And here I was sleeping … right in his … home … town. That’s almost downright sultry.

I’ve known Sedaris–not personally but rather as a humorist, comedian, and author–for decades, going all the way back to 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay “Santaland Diaries.” I have always appreciated and enjoyed his self-deprecating humor, his candor about growing up gay in middle-class America in the late Sixties and the early Seventies, and his open-and-oft-written-about commitment to his long-time partner Hugh Hamrick. Hamrick has a few things to say about their relationship, too: “Hugh Hamrick—David Sedaris’ Boyfriend—Finally Tells His Side of Their Story.”

After I got settled in my Johnson City hotel room, I decided that I’d spend the evening in bed with Sedaris. (Re-reading some of his essays on my all-time favorites list.)

It was a “wild night, wild night.“ (Of reading.) I awakened the next morning refreshed and ready to continue my journey.

Not long after leaving Johnson City, I saw signs announcing that I was in New York State’s Southern Tier. I’m not sure why, but I always chuckle when I see those Southern Tier signs. But my laughter subsided as I started seeing birch trees everywhere, as far as I could see. And I immediately thought of Robert Frost’s poem, “Birches,” but since I have written extensively about that poem already in my “A Swinger of Birches,” I will say no more about the poem here except to quote its opening lines:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.

An hour or so later, I started seeing signs for Cooperstown, NY. It goes without saying that I fully expected to see a sign: HOME OF JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. I had every right to have that expectation since the town was named after the Cooper family, since Cooper was America’s first novelist to earn his living as a writer, and since Cooperstown and the surrounding frontier served as the backdrop for The Pioneers, the first of five novels in his Leatherstocking Tales.

I did not see the sign that I had expected. Instead, I saw signs announcing Cooperstown as Home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s too bad that Cooper’s hometown doesn’t consider him to be a Major League player.

An hour or so later, I approached Saratoga Springs, NY. I was ecstatic. Saratoga Springs. The setting for most of the action in Sherwood Anderson’s famous rite-of-passage short story “I Want to Know Why.”

But about Saratoga. We was there six days and not a soul from home seen us and everything came off just as we wanted it to, fine weather and horses and races and all. We beat our way home and Bildad gave us a basket with fried chicken and bread and other eatables in, and I had eighteen dollars when we got back to Beckersville. Mother jawed and cried but Pop didn’t say much. I told everything we done except one thing. I did and saw that alone. That’s what I’m writing about. It got me upset. I think about it at night. Here it is.

How’s that. The unnamed fifteen-year-old narrator goes back home and tells his parents everything that happened in Saratoga except for the one thing that he “did and saw alone.”

What he doesn’t tell his parents is the passion and love that he feels for Jerry Tilford, a horse trainer. What he doesn’t tell his parents is what he saw Tilford doing in a farmhouse with a “bad woman.” What he doesn’t tell his parents is how he felt about Tilford when he saw what he saw:

Then, all of a sudden, I began to hate that man. I wanted to scream and rush into the room and kill him. I never had such a feeling before. I was mad clean through and I cried and my fists were doubled up so my finger nails cut my hands.

The story ends the next spring with the narrator, nearly sixteen, still wanting to know why Jerry Tilford did what he did. I suspect that the narrator spent his entire life being upset by his feelings and by Jerry’s actions. I suspect that the narrator spent his entire life wondering why things didn’t work out as he hoped they would work out.

It’s one of the most haunting stories about coming-of-age, sexual desire, and rejection that you can ever hope to read. Anderson deals with the topic far more overtly in his story “The Man Who Became a Woman.” After you read that story, you simply must read Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919). It’s an overlooked classic in American literature.

Two hours or so later, I reached my first book-launch destination: Burlington, VT. I am embarrassed to say that even though I love Ben & Jerry’s Ice-Cream, I had no idea that Burlington has been its home since 1978 when they started dishing it out. Today, it’s still their home, with 282 million pints of deliciousness churned annually.

After Burlington, I headed south to Brattleboro for a second launch of Green Mountain Stories. Obviously, I need not remind you that Mary E. Wilkins Freeman–the author of Green Mountain Stories–launched her career in Brattleboro.

What else can I share about Brattleboro that might exceed your expectations?

Royall Tyler, America’s first playwright whose The Contrast (1787) still enjoys theatrical productions, moved to Brattleboro in 1801 and is buried there in Prospect Hill Cemetery.

Then, of course, we have Rudyard Kipling, English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist, known for being the first English-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1907). What most folks don’t know is that he married Caroline Balestier of Brattleboro in 1892, moved there–initially living in Bliss Cottage where he wrote The Jungle Book (1894)–and then built Naulakha, which is on the Landmark Trust USA. What even fewer people know is that Freeman met Kipling in the Spring of 1892, on one of her return visits to Brattleboro. Later, she wrote to a friend:

The spell of Ruddy’s eyes have faded away, but my heart still clings to the coupe driver. (Letter 111 to Evelyn Sawyer Severance, The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, ed. with Biographical/Critical Introductions by Brent L. Kendrick. Scarecrow, 1985.)

And what almost no one knows is that Saul Bellow–acclaimed Canadian-American Nobel Laureate in Literature and author of such noteworthy novels as Dangling Man (1944), The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Seize the Day (1956), and Henderson the Rain King (1959)–lived in Brattleboro for the last 26 years of his life and is buried there in the Shir He Harim Jewish Cemetery section of Morningside Cemetery.

The morning after my Brattleboro book launch, I started the long drive back home. I intended it to be a straight shot on interstates. Somehow–accidentally, I should add–my Gladiator’s Navigation System was programmed to AVOID HIGHWAYS. And I was programmed to DON’T THINK. I just kept right on going down one country back road after another, paying them nary no mind whatsoever. After all, I was getting an up-close-and-personal view of Vermont’s Green Mountains.

The next thing I knew, I was approaching Ulster, NY, with signs announcing HEADLESS HORSEMAN HAYRIDES AND HAUNTED HOUSES. Oh. My. God. How the hell did I end up in the Lower Catskills where folks still scare themselves with Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820).

Suffice it to say, I had given myself my own fright. Immediately, I adjusted my Navigation System, got back on my intended route, settled in to Cruise Control, and clicked my boots together three times, saying “There’s no place like home.”

Before I knew it, I had picked up Ruby from the pet spa. As I drove back up my mountain road, I shared with her brief highlights of my road trip beyond expectations. But as soon as I saw our house, I stopped my storytelling and shouted:

“But anyway, Ruby, we’re home–home.”

As Light As a Feather

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On a long journey, even a straw weighs heavy.

Spanish Proverb

Recently, I traveled from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to the Green Mountains of Vermont. What prompted the trip was the launch of my edition of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s Green Mountain Stories, first in Burlington and then in Brattleboro. Don’t worry. I won’t recap the book or its launches. Neither is the point of this post.

Something unusual happened while I was packing for my journey. I’ve been wondering about it ever since.

Even though I was going to be away for ten days, I managed to pack everything that I needed into one small suitcase (laundered and folded shirts; boxers; socks; handkerchiefs; bathrobe; and toiletries); one thin garment bag (a lightweight blazer; a pair of dress trousers; several pairs of chinois; flip flops; and a pair of loafers); and my book bag (laptop; books; portfolio with notepad; pens; and index cards).

I was pleased with my efficiency. I could grab my suitcase and book bag in one hand and my garment bag in the other and be on my way. I had room to spare in the backseat of my Jeep Gladiator, especially since my dog Ruby was staying in her own room at our local pet spa.

This was my first solo research/scholarly trip in two decades.

Until this time, my late partner Allen had always gone with me on all of my scholarly speaking engagements, research journeys, and conferences. The details started bubbling up from the depth of memory to the surface of now.

All of those “aways” were professional, but Allen and I always did our best to make them memorable vay-kays.

Packing was totally different then, and we each did our own thing.

I was never quite certain what I might be called upon to do professionally on these trips, and, like most Scorpions, I have a moody side. So I had to pack at least one suit–sometimes two–plus several sports jackets with matching trousers; two dress belts (black and brown); at least a half dozen dress shirts and as many or more silk ties; boxers; socks; two pair of dress shoes (black and brown); and handkerchiefs.

That would cover professional events. But hey! We’re on vay-kay. What about play clothes?

I’m just as fashionably moody in that clothing category, too. Khakis. Blue jeans. Long- and short-sleeved shirts. Lightweight sweaters. Penny loafers.  Sneakers. Athletic socks. OMG.  What if we go hiking? Hiking boots. Hiking poles. Backpack. Well, you see where this is going. Right?

Yeah. You probably do. But keep in mind that I haven’t even gotten to my cosmetics. Hairspray. Facial cleanser. Astringent. Skin cream. Shaving lather. Razors. Deodorant. Nail clippers. Files. Emory boards. And what’s a vay-kay without a facial? Peel-off masks. Clay masks. Charcoal masks. Body scrub. Sun screen. Toothpaste. Dental floss. Mouthrinse. OMG. I nearly forgot my hairbrush and comb. Thank God I remembered those. After all, even strangers remember me for the hair that I don’t have enough of, really, to brush or to spray. But I have lots of memories, so I keep brushing and spraying. Those were the days, my friends.

But let me get back to Allen and his packing. He never worried too much about the professional attire. Since he and I wore the same size clothes, he figured that if I wasn’t wearing it, he could, especially since he liked my dress clothes.

But when it came to play clothes, if my Scorpionic moodiness made me pack a lot, his Piscean moodiness made him pack a lot more, usually a lot more new threads that he always loved to buy for our vay-kays.

Luckily, he could pack his cosmetics in a small leather toiletry bag while telling all of our friends–and even rank strangers–that we always pulled one U-Haul for my cosmetics and another U-Haul just for my hairspray.

Sure. Of course. Allen had his own quirky things that he had to pack up and bring, too. So that I can have my own touché moment, I’ll tell you all about them right now, My Dear Readers. But please don’t share these secrets with strangers, rank or otherwise. First and foremost, he had to bring an electric fan–not to cool us off but to create white noise while we slept. Second, and almost as important as the first, were our pillows. No other pillows in the world would satisfy him like our own. Shrink packaging helped, but those four king-sized pillows added to the total weight of everything that we were packing. Third, e[x][r]otic massage oil. (Well, maybe we’ll need the electric fan after all. Just saying.)

If we happened to be packing for a trip somewhere where we had rented a VRBO home–as we preferred doing whenever we could–we knew that we would be cooking dinner upon arrival. Whatever we were having for that first evening’s meal would fit into the cooler, along with whatever “special” cut of meat we would have for a special vay-kay dinner while away. Toss in the spices, condiments, wine, limes, tonic water, and Bombay Sapphire Gin. Now, we’re all packed and ready to go. (Not to worry. I didn’t forget our favorite cast iron skillet.)

OMG! I forgot the dogs! Never two at once. First Hazel during most of the years that Allen and I were together. Then, Ruby, during Allen’s final three years. Each dog had the same requirements. Food. Treats. Food dish. Water dish. Blanket. Brush. Toys. Leash. Poop bags. Space to curl up and lie down.

By the time we got everything packed into my Jeep–usually a two-door Wrangler–we inevitably started our journey with no small degree of surprise that we had managed to get everything packed into the Jeep while still leaving space for our furry, four-legged best friend.

When we arrived, wherever it happened to be that we were going, we were always ecstatic to get unpacked and settled in. (Thank God for Gin & Tonics, e[r][x]otic massage oil, and the electric fan.)

Regardless of how often we traveled–usually two or three journeys a year–as we unpacked, our eyes would lock on one another, and we would break into riotous laughter as we discovered that each of us–unbeknownst to the other–had packed candle sticks, candles, cocktail glasses, Venetian glass cocktail stirs, wine glasses, linen napkins,  pewter flatware, and China service for two.

Now, I can’t help but wonder and wonder and wonder about all of those journeys. What magic made those heavy suitcases feel as light as a feather?

“Sit Down.” “No, I Can’t Sit Down.”

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There can be no joy in living without joy in work.

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274; Italian philosopher and theologian, often seen as a foundational figure of modern thought.)

The Sheep’s Rain this year nearly did me in.

“What the hell is the Sheep’s Rain?” someone just bleated.

If you don’t know, don’t bother asking Google. I just did and found nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So let me tell you all about the Sheep’s Rain, just as my mother told me all about it when I was a child. Without fail, at least in Virginia (where she grew up) and in West Virginia (where she lived after she married my dad) a cold rain always fell around the middle of May, the temps dropped to lower than usual, and the rain kept falling for ten days or so. Farmers never sheared their sheep until after that cold rainy spell in May. They knew that if they did, their sheep would develop pneumonia and die.

Having lived in West Virginia, DC, and Virginia for my entire life–except for five years in South Carolina–I have witnessed the Sheep’s Rain every year since my mother explained it to me when I was a child.

However, when I started thinking about this post, I started asking people I know in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where I live if they had ever heard of the Sheep’s Rain. No one–not even farmers–had any idea what I was talking about.

Who knows. Maybe it was a term used by farmers in Patrick County where my mother grew up. Maybe she, in turn, kept right on referring to the Sheep’s Rain down through the years, dutifully passing the name of this annual weather phenomenon on to her children who still talk about it.

I always believed my mother, of course, and it goes without saying that I still do.

But it does seem to me that I should be able to give you a far better explanation of the Sheep’s Rain than the one that I just gave. Agreed? Thank you. Let’s all have a brief learning moment. I simply must see what the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has to say. I’ll be right back.

Well, I have good news and bad news.

I’ll start with the bad news. The OED has no recorded usage of the Sheep’s Rain. Ever.

I am flabbergasted.

Here’s the good news. I will send this post to the OED editors so that they can use it as the first-known printed usage of the term Sheep’s Rain. I never dreamt that this post would immortalize me, my mother, and the Sheep’s Rain. Wouldn’t it be truly funny if it did! Well, it might. Stranger things have happened.

Now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way–thank God for small mercies–let me get back to sharing with you why the Sheep’s Rain this year nearly did me in.

A warm spell lulled me into believing that spring was slipping softly and certainly into an early summer. I went ahead and moved all of my houseplants–tropicals and cacti–deck side.

I convinced myself that the Sheep’s Rain might just pass us by this year.

In fact, I started doing heavy pruning, weedwhacking, and brush cutting. I had a plan that would keep me busy for at least a week.

But to my surprise, the Sheep’s Rain snuck up on me and put a wet, cold damper on my plans to work outdoors.

No problem. I am a resourceful fellow, not easily outdone.

I simply shifted my focus to indoors. I cleaned the house. That was a marvelous solution for the first day of the Sheep’s Rain that imprisoned me indoors unexpectedly.

Fine. I can be resourceful for more than one day. Day two found me joyfully polishing the interiors of all my windows. My entire home seemed to be one window after another, bouncing their sparkling, streak-free reflections everywhere. I was finished by noon.

I spent the afternoon re-reading George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo for the fifth time.

Then I leisured my way through my dinner prep as the fire roared red in my kitchen fireplace.

Bedtime came early, and the next morning came even earlier as day three of the Sheep’s Rain imprinted itself on my deepening pain.

No problem. My resourcefulness prompted me to bike longer, pump iron longer, read longer, research longer, nap longer, and take longer for dinner.

But. Geez. How much of a good thing can a mountain man take?

I mean. Don’t get me wrong. I love–absolutely love–all of those things. But in their midst, I need something else that I wasn’t getting.

And that’s why the Sheep’s Rain this year nearly did me in.

What I needed–what I wasn’t getting–were the benefits that go hand in hand with hard work.

Stop right now. Don’t even go there. I’m fully aware that cooking and cleaning and reading and research and writing and biking and lifting weights all require hard work, sometimes far more than others are willing to acknowledge.

But I needed to get down and dirty with manual work that leaves the muscles I know feeling sorer than they’ve ever felt before, and that leaves the muscles I don’t know, knowing that they had damned well better get with the program.

I needed to raise my 8-pound maul mid-air and thrust it back down with such force that round after round of oak would pile up in mound after mound of split wood.

I needed to bring order to all of that mounded chaos at day’s end by rhythmically stacking it all into perfectly measured and balanced cords of firewood.

I needed spurt after spurt after spurt of endorphins to be released, to pump me up, to clear my brain, and to make me see rainbow after rainbow after rainbow. Rainbows of hope, arching over me, arching around me, arching behind me, and arching ahead of me. Rainbows. Hope. Everywhere.

Somehow the more that I write about it, the more I’m coming to realize that the Sheep’s Rain this year really didn’t nearly do me in.

Instead, it impressed upon me what I have realized so many times before. I need manual labor to spur me on with my creative labors and my intellectual labors.

Instead, it impressed upon me the wish that when my now is done and my forever begins, I want to keep right on working.

When I reach my home in that land somewhere–that world to come somewhere–I want to be of like mind with that old gospel song:

“Sit down.”

“No, I can’t sit down. I just got to Heaven, and I got to walk around.”

And you had damned well better believe that I won’t be walking around gawking at those twelve gates of single pearls and those transparent streets of pure gold.

I’ll be walking around with a can of Pledge in one hand and a microfiber dust cloth in the other. Somebody, after all, will have to keep all those splendiferous furnishings clean. I won’t mind at all.

After I’m done with dusting, I hope to find a hand plow so that I can start tilling all those fertile fields and get an early start on gardening. From time to time, maybe I’ll get to work up a heady sweat by moving rocks as big as the biggest boulders I’ve ever moved in my whole life.

After the gardening and the dusting, maybe I can work in the bakery for a few hours a day. I’ll be sure to bring along a little jar of my sourdough starter, grown from spores back home on my mountaintop in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. And, for good measure, I’ll bring extra copies of “Oh, No! Sourdough!” for folks who just want to sit around all day, reading.

As for me, one thing’s for sure. I won’t be sitting around, and I won’t be sitting down. Whenever I reach my home in whatever world is yet to come, I’ll be smackdab at the head of the line, looking for work, because my joy in living is upgirded by my joy in working, now and forever.

Made in Vermont.

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“I love the winter landscapes, Oh how wonderfully beautiful it was in Brattleboro. I used to walk to the head of High Street, and stand and look at the mountain in winter. The beauty in Brattleboro made a great difference in my life.”

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 1852-1930 (Letter 509 to Allie Morse. The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Edited with Biographical/Critical Introductions and Annotations by Brent L. Kendrick. Scarecrow, 1985.)

I don’t know about you, but when I hear “Made in Vermont,” many things come to my mind.

The first thing that always defies gravity by flowing upwards to the top of my list is Maple Syrup. Vermont and maple syrup are synonymous in my mind. Imagine a stack of sourdough pancakes, topped with melting butter, all amber-glazed with hot maple syrup. (Well, I’ve got the starter, and I’ve got the maple syrup. I can feel breakfast coming on. Actually, once when I was in Vermont, my hosts insisted that we have pancakes and maple syrup for dinner, with dill pickle spears on the side. Scrumptious!) Maple syrup must taste good to lots and lots and lots of people: on average, Vermont produces 2.55 million gallons of maple syrup annually. Is that sweet or what?

The second thing on my Made-in-Vermont list–since I’m a baker–would have to be King Arthur Flour. Is there any other? Of course, other brands of flour exist. But when it comes to my own baking–biscuits, cakes, cobblers, muffins, pancakes, pie crust, puff pastry, and scones–I always use King Arthur Flour. (No. I am not being paid by advertising affiliates. Hmmm. That is a thought.) I even use it to start my sourdough starter and to replenish it. Located in Norwich, Vermont, King Arthur Flour produces 100 million pounds annually. Can you imagine?

Cheese, of course, is on my list, too. Vermont produces 147 million pounds of cheese annually. Its artisanal cheeses are some of the best in the world. I’m thinking of Cabot’s Clothbound Cheddar, Jasper Hill’s Bayley Hazen Blue, Lazy Lady Farm Goat Cheese, and Vermont Creamery’s Bonnie Bouche. Those are some of my favorites. They seem to be everyone’s favorites when served alongside some fresh fruit and a warm loaf of my fresh sourdough bread made, of course, with King Arthur Flour.

And since I have a sweet tooth, you won’t be surprised to know that Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream (out of Burlington, Vermont) makes my list and lots of others’, too, confirmed by 282 million pints churned annually. Best-selling? Half Baked, followed by Cherry Garcia. I’ll take a triple-scoop, waffle cone of each, one for each hand. Yum! Thank you for the extra napkins. I’ll need them.

To that list, a new Made-in-Vermont item can be added as of May 23. Surprisingly, it’s not food related. On further thought, however, it really is food related. It’s food for the soul. That’s the best kind. It’s a book of short stories, many of them as timeless and as universal as you can ever hope to find, in Vermont or anywhere else in the world.

My regular followers know, of course, that I am referring to my recently published edition of Green Mountain Stories, a collection of 28 stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Originally published in 1887 under the title A Humble Romance and Other Stories, it’s now in print–136 years later–under what appears to have been the title that Freeman and her editor, Mary Louise Booth, had agreed upon: Green Mountain Stories. You can read all about the book’s backstory in the “Introduction” and the “Critical Commentary” that I wrote for the publication.

I won’t go into the details here. If I do, you will have no incentive to buy Green Mountain Stories. And if you don’t buy the book, how will I–a former community college professor–be able to afford reinventing myself, a process that I started in January 2023. I can’t stop now, sung to the tune of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “I Won’t Back Down.” Lord only knows what might become of me if I did. I must finish whatever it is that I have started in this new chapter of my life. Trust me: I’ll stand my ground, won’t be turned around.

But let me get back to Green Mountain Stories. I was in Burlington, Vermont, for a launch on May 25, and then, on May 30, I was in Brattleboro, Vermont, for another launch. At both launches, I emphasized a few of Freeman’s major literary accomplishments:

■ In 1925, she was the first recipient of the William Dean Howells Gold Medal for Distinguished Work in Fiction. The award is given every five years. Some subsequent winners include Pearl Buck, Eudora Welty, William Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon, John Updike, Don DeLillo, and, most recently, Richard Powers.

■ In 1926, she was one of the first women elected to membership in the American Institute of Arts and Letters. It “marked the letting down of the bars to women.”

■ In 1938, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters dedicated its bronze doors to “The Memory of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and the Women Writers of America.”

At both launches, I also noted something truly extraordinary about the publication of Green Mountain Stories.

From the time that I came up with my plan for the book, I decided that the publisher of Green Mountain Stories would have to be a Vermont publisher. I would not settle for less.

Now, Vermonters can take great pride in knowing that Green Mountain Stories is Made in Vermont.

■ The book’s publisher—Onion River Press–is in Burlington, Vermont.

■ The book’s designer—Jenny Lyons— lives in Vermont.

■ The book’s launches took place in Vermont, initially in Burlington–sponsored by Onion River Press and Vermont bookseller Phoenix Books–and then in Brattleboro–sponsored by three Vermont organizations: Brattleboro Literary Festival, Brooks Memorial Library, and the Words Trail.

■ And, most important of all, the author of Green Mountain Stories–Mary E. Wilkins Freeman– launched her acclaimed literary career in Brattleboro, Vermont.

Green Mountain Stories is Made in Vermont.

■ I hope that Green Mountain Stories brings great inspiration to readers across Vermont.

■ I hope that each of the 262,852 households in Vermont buys a copy.

■ I hope that each of the 185 public libraries in Vermont buys at least one copy.

■ And I hope that each of the 250 public schools in Vermont figures out a way to incorporate at least one Mary E. Wilkins Freeman short story into their curriculum. They will find many suitable ones in Green Mountain Stories–stories on par with the best in American Literature, right up there with Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Sarah Orne Jewett, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Sherwood Anderson, and William Faulkner.

Those are my hopes. I know. They are high hopes. I do not hold those hopes with the expectation of selling lots of copies of Green Mountain Stories, though bringing home a little green wouldn’t be a bad thing. Instead, I hope that Vermont and Vermonters will welcome home with welcome arms its most famous literary daughter, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: Made in Vermont.