I just dug your Email out -- and assume you have cancelled whatever
reservations you had in gay, exciting Rutland following our phone
discussion.
Also following that discussion I discovered sitting in my outbox
waiting to be
sent my original Email to you -- which I sent several hours ago.
Since that date there has been only one improvement in our plans.
Instead of the little inn I described in glowing terms, you will be
staying with Hull and Taffy Maynard, whose fireplaces crackle even
brighter than do those at the inn and whose bar is even better stocked.
The Maynard's should be quite an experience and are worth the trip in
and of themselves. Polly, who has a booth at the Hartford (Conn.)
Flower Show opening today, can fill you in on the remarkable Taffy.
Hull's father coachedthe Choate football team and Hull himself and
his family are excellent athletes; one daughter, for example, is an
Olympic -class skier. Being a Shrewsbury neighbor working in Rutland,
Hull was my first insurance agent in Vermont --- whom I quickly
bounced for his seeming arrogance. That was twenty years ago. Last
year Hull made his second venture into politics -- running as a
Republican against a fine Republican incumbant representing our
district in the State Senate. His first foray into politics occured at
a raucous Shrewsbury annual Town Meeting , where elections, budgets,
taxes and everything else was decided by voice (or ocasionally
written) vote during one marathon day and night, and was such a
disaster that he withdrew his name. Not so this second try, where he
won by a whopping three (count 'em!) votes.
In addition to the highly successful insurance business, the Maynards
raise
sheep, and as is becoming fashionable among the relatively few
landowners of
sizable tracts left in town (when we bought our first house in '69
there were l3 working farms in Shrewsbury, two today) they have become
inn keepers now that their kids have fled the roost. Meadowsweet Herb
Farm, at 160 acres, is
considerably larger than the Maynard's and actuslly was a bed &
breakfast years ago, but she is too frantic trying to turn a profit
running a business single-
handedly while also filling the roles of housekeeper, cook, laundress,
outdoor
handyman and snow-shoveller, gardener and keeper of two heated
greenhouses, mucker-outer of five horse stalls, feeder and carer of
five Morgans,
two geese, 400 birds and five tropical fish, book-keeper, crisis
manager (as when a month ago the loggers sheepishly told us they had
smashed our spring
house up the mountain and destroyed our water supply), not to mention
wife and
Carepartner to a rapidly failing Parkie -- as I say too busy to make
immediate
plans for a reborn Meadowsweet B & B. though believe it or not,
Project-a-Minute-Polly has this on her "to do" list, since it would fit
nicely with her plan to expand her business by introducing
workshop-seminars on various herbal
subjects!
Back to the Maynard's........Hull and I recently crossed swords on a
minor
matter involving another neighbor and mutual friend, US Senator Jim
Jeffords.
I'm mailing the six (sic) of you the relavent correspondence for your
edification
and amusement; being the decent, warmhearted guy he is, Hull forgave
my
infraction of the rules of politeness or noblesse oblige or whatever the
heck it was I broke!
I have gone into all these stories and details about the Maynards,
Haynes'
and Shrewsbury for one, single reason: to persuade you, Marvel,
and you, Marie, that you would have a wonderful time if you joined us
for a few days
of total relaxation and enjoyment. (Pat McIntire knows that for dozens
of reasons
I'm counting happily on her being with us.) Even if you see skiing
(quite properly, in my estimation) as a form of madness where you
strap two boards
to your feet and for no discernable reason risk death sliding down
an icy mountain full of trees, cougars, coyotes and black bears,
preferring like the rest of us sane folk (mainly Vermonters, not flat
landers) the snug warmth and safety of our hearths and nursing a
sherry, glass of wine, martini, manhattan or, like me, nothing at
all -- but merey swapping stories and other lies, getting reacquainted
while there is stilll time, or simply drinking in the beaty and
fascination of the Vermont winter. (Example: just outside the large
country-kitchen window, sitting patiently in a young maple we
planted two decades ago, at eye level to me as I type this and scarcely
20 feet away, is a huge owl.
Shrewd bird that he is, he's waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting
mouse, squirrel or chipmonk that emerges from the labryinth of tunnels
under the snow cover to share the bird seeds we sprinkle for the
grosbeaks and other ground feeders. We have never seen eachother before,
and occasionally he interupts his vigil to lock eyes with me in total
unconcern -- a battle he invariably wins.
)
In case you're wondering, we men will find opportunities galore to slip
off
and do our male bonding thing. Polly for one welcmes this: she finds
the ssessions of our Parkinson's Support Group that are the most helpful
and downright enojyable are those where we split into Parkies (mainly
men) and
Carepartners (almost wholely women), where the latter can bitch and
complain about the life of a Carepartner(1) with its slights and
nonrecognition, and compare notes in a way that would simply be
impossstble in the united group.
Simlarly, she tells me she has plenty to get off her chest about the
vissitudes of
wifehood in the boonies of Vermont and is quite looking forward to a
little female bonding during your stay!
Taffy Maynard tells Polly that she and Hull are excited about the
prospect of welcoming my three Navy buddies AND their wives. So,
clearly,
am I and
Polly.
Do come.
Please.
Cheers, Elliott
TO HELL WITH PARKINSON'S !! LONG LIVE WET
BONES !!
Ten Ribald
Parkies Proverbs
17:22
PS- Dick, could you fax or Email a copy of this today to the
Robertson's and the
McIntires, please.
PPS- Footnote (1) explained in my next posting!
