It's a two lane road, named after a Vermont hero who caused the British considerable trouble during the Revolutionary War in a so-called rear-action retreat. There is a battlefield in Hubbarton where Seth's actions are described and commemorated.
Route 30 connects a number of Vermont's hamlets, and fair-sized centers. There is Manchester in the southern portion, known for its shopping and Hildene, where Robert Lincoln lived for a time. At the top end of Route 30 is Fair Haven, hugging the New York border where the Fair Haven Inn is located, an authentic Greek restaurant that has been there for nearly 40 years.
In between the ends is Middlebury and Middlebury College. Middlebury is the county seat of Addison county and its ancient court house in the 1980s was the site of Geraldine Ferraro's son John's trial for selling cocaine on campus. Ms. Ferraro by then was a household name, having been a Vice Presidential candidate with Walter Mondale in 1984. She was the first female candidate in a presidential election and of course spawned the rhyming pejorative, Fritz and Tits.
The media crush at the old court house likely convinced the elected officials that a more up-to-date building was needed. A new court house was built, and the old one was used for vocational training. Our most recent visit to Middlebury, after a nine year hiatus, showed that the old courthouse was now housing a tech company.
Vermont has many charms, and still some grueling industries. Take granite. Still being taken out of what is described as a near-inexhaustible quarry in Barre, Vermont. The Italians from Bari, Italy settled in the town, worked the quarries, and turned the town into a shrine to granite. The Rock of Ages granite company is still hoisting and polishing and engraving the heavy stuff, turning it into monuments, headstones, and nearly anything that calls for granite.
The town is so in love with granite that house numbers are carved from granite, mail boxes are made from it, and I swear I even saw a welcome mat made from the hard stuff.
One year after a tour through the town and the Rock of Ages quarry I will forever remember a giant flat bed truck pulling up to 35th Street and Fifth Avenue early one morning, unloading huge lengths of granite curbstone for the front of the re-purposing of Altman's Department Store into a City University Graduate Center and a Science and Technology branch of the New York Public Library. The cab of the truck proclaimed that what you now step over in that section of Manhattan came from Barre, VT.
There were other quarry sites. Proctor, right outside of Rutland produced a steady supply of marble. There's a spot just off the road where you can still pick up some colorful small pieces and no one will ask you for money. A few of these are bookends in our house.
Then there's the neat, looking fairly upscale community of Dorset, just north of Manchester. Dorset is not particularly big, but there is an East and South Dorset, and a just plain Dorset. As you go through Dorset, heading north on Route 30 you can't help but notice a large swimming area on the right where in the spring and summer months there are always lots and lots of daredevils, tiptoeing their way to the edge of large ledges of marble, to jump into the water below.
There is an expanse of grass along this stretch of land, where there are lots and lots of sunbathers. No beach, but certainly water, and some cool looking cliffs to jump from.
A stop this year in the Middlebury bookstore lead to the purchase of 'Vermont Magazine', Not 'Vermont Life', which I've been getting for years but a magazine that looks and reads like what Vermont Life used to look like. Way more content.
In the the September/October edition I bought I came across a story about Dorset, and its quarry history. It is an extensive history. The marble for the Fifth Avenue main branch of the New York Public Library came from Dorset quarries, starting in 1901. One hundred ton slabs.
The swimming hole we've always been going past is actually part of the old quarry, now flooded and put to good recreational use. The magazine story gave background on the railroads that transported the massively cut stones, as well as information on the Dorset Historical Society and the museum it operates.
Other than a stop at J.K. Adams for some butcher block cutting boards, we've never really explored, or looked into the history of Dorset All that will change now. The next time we approach Dorset we will stop. We go through there now annually anyway, since we take in the Greek restaurant in Fair Haven on the dark Saratoga racing day, Tuesday.
The trips through Route 30 takes you up and down, and around and around, a bit of a roller coaster ride through small communities, and just plain farm country. Depending of the time of day, and your direction, you are likely to get somewhat stuck behind a school bus. You can go around them when they are not stopped, but the width of a two lane road makes this difficult. So, in addition to other sights, you get to see that Vermont kids, like all kids, universally wear backpacks. Only up there, it does seem even a walk from the bus to the house, a hike is involved.
When you see them head to the house that is part of a farm you can't but wonder what chores they might have already done, and what are they headed for in the afternoon part of the day. Neighbors can be a little far away, so popping over to someone's house doesn't seem to be on the agenda.
I've read from some jacket cover flyleaf that the novelist John Irving lives in Dorset. This puts him in great surroundings for a writer, and very near Middlebury College and the Bread Loaf School of English. There is also a great bookstore in Manchester, Northshire, just south of Dorset where I know Mr. Irving has given readings. I even have an autographed copy of 'Widow for A Year' that was still on the shelf after one of his readings. I guess they didn't all sell.
You're just going to have to take my word for it, but years and years ago Mr. Irving complained quite heatedly in an Op-Ed NYT piece, or something in the Wall Street Journal, about how his young son had to spend so much time on the school bus. There was also something in there about school taxes, I'm sure.
I'm also sure I saved the clipping, but finding it will be a chore for any interested heirs. Needless to say, Mr. Irving took considerable heat in Letters to the Editor.
Mr. Irving is not J. D. Salinger. A picture of his trophy home appears on the Internet. Quite a spread. Finding it might be a bit of a secret, but one I'm sure someone could easily crack.
The school bus tirade was so long ago that I'm sure his son now drives to school. Or is in college somewhere. And since that son is from a second marriage, there might not now be any following younger offspring to plop on a bus and curse. Or, if there are, they now drive.
Anyway, Mr. Irving has a new book coming out, 'Avenue of Mysteries', November 3rd. Appearances will I'm sure be made, and my guess is he will be at Northshire Book Store, Middlebury, and at a Barnes and Noble in New York City, amongst other venues.
It's not likely I'll be in any of those audiences, but I'd like to remind him of his school bus outcry and ask him: "John, what did you think might happen when you have young children in Vermont?"
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