A couple of years ago, Chris Ashby, director of operations at the Champlain Valley Exposition, saw three boys peering longingly through a fence at the Champlain Valley Fair. He guessed the kids were 8 or 9 years old. On the other side of fence was the fair’s tractor pull, and Ashby could hear the indefatigable […]
Author Archives: Chris Bohjalian
The Writing Process, Untold Stories, Vermont
A little too much like life: Aging and the approaching end to Idyll Banter
16
Aug
Aug
In one of the last weeks of my father’s life — though we had no idea at the time that he would be leaving us shortly as a result of a burst blood vessel in his brain — he asked me to intervene with the caregivers at his assisted living facility who felt he […]
09
Aug
Aug
If you really want to understand Vermont, spend a little time with Georgia. Georgia is a 65-pound pit bull and chocolate Lab mix — a classic rescue mutt — with a wattle under her neck that could double as a change purse, but makes her no less endearing. Earlier this week, she spent two hours […]
02
Aug
Aug
It was well over 200 years ago now that Jeremy Bentham asked about animals, “The question is not, ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” It was a rhetorical question even then. Obviously animals can suffer; obviously animals feel pain. Last week the Internet, the news media, and Minnesotans publicly shamed […]
26
Jul
Jul
Finding an 1880 Vermont farmhouse, fully intact, smack in the middle of the road just never gets old. Watching it on a flatbed truck ascend a 13 percent grade? Even better. Such was the nail-biting theater here in Lincoln last Wednesday afternoon. Christie Sumner’s old house was becoming Todd and Jen Goodyear’s new one, and […]
19
Jul
Jul
Unless you have been living under a rock — or in self-imposed isolation with Boo Radley — you have probably watched the ballyhooed publication of Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” last week. Barnes & Noble hasn’t released the actual number it sold the day the book arrived on Tuesday, but the bookstore chain has […]
12
Jul
Jul
Vaneasa Stearns, owner of the illustrious Lincoln General Store here in Lincoln, Vermont, has been in this column a lot over the 23 years I have been writing Idyll Banter. Her most recent appearance that was more than a mere cameo was two summers ago, on her and her husband’s 25th wedding anniversary. I chronicled […]
05
Jul
Jul
Here is today’s profound meaning-of-life question: Is it better to have a serious gastrointestinal meltdown at 35,000 feet in the rear bathroom of a 737 or be seated in the last row of the aircraft while the flight attendant is pounding on the bathroom door, begging the passenger to come out, and everyone in those […]
28
Jun
Jun
Don O’Connell has a serious issue with Charlie Brown’s friends. He is also, just for the record, not wild about any of the reindeer but Rudolph. “They’re bullies,” he observed of most of the Peanuts characters. “They treat Charlie Brown horribly. The only one who likes him is Linus – and that kid has serious […]
28
Jun
Jun
We all remember “Father Knows Best.” Okay, almost no one does, except for my late father’s friends in South Florida. Actually, even they don’t remember it anymore. But at least they did once. When Eisenhower was president. In any case, the show revolved around the Anderson family, and the paterfamilias — played by Robert Young […]
