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Posts tagged as:
yankee structures
This south facing church is just opposite the Town Hall (see below) on the main street in town, otherwise known as Route 30. There’s much in each photograph I enjoy, beginning with the fact that the community has gathered in both of these places – for matters spiritual and temporal – since the middle of the nineteenth century.
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Unfortunately I missed this concert by a couple of days, but it was easy to imagine – the sense of community and the power of the songs – in the vibe that lingered.
Mike Aiken comments:
“A town hall, in New England, is exactly that: a hall where the town (the people of the town) can gather to discuss their business, air their concerns, be heard and (possibly) influence the town’s future. The buildings themselves are therefore a statement of faith: that what goes in, comes out transformed by the town mind. And there indeed is a core democratic principle.
Woody Guthrie held this faith, and preached it far and wide, probably in many small towns like Jamaica, Vermont. 21st Century Vermont, however, is not the Dust Bowl of the Thirties, and not even close to the Vermont photographed by the Works Progress Administration in the 30’s. But Woody Guthrie’s songs are remembered, and celebrated, and out of THAT act of keeping faith with the man and his thoughts and words, maybe there is a new world coming along out of what he saw and heard.”
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Looking west about an hour or so after sunset. Needed to use a tripod, and was amazed at how much light a 6 second exposure brought in, as I was shooting in what seemed like total darkness. Interesting also that star trails are evident with such a short exposure. (I had also used a self-timer to minimize any moverment.) A Hunter’s Moon rising behind me lights up the barn a bit.
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The following riffs are from an email conversation with old friend Mike Hamer (a musician and writer from NC, who grew up on a farm in Newport VT). I had originally sent him two photos from this same perspective, one with two guys looking at the truck, and one without. A third photo from closer in (“What Guys Do”) can be seen directly above this one.
AR: “Here are a couple of variations on that Vermont Country Store scene. If it inspires you to write an paragraph/essay/tome, please do so and I will publish it. Which works better for you – with or without the guys?”
MH: “.. I prefer the shot with the guys. I have 2 ideas for anecdotes from growing up days — one a story of boom year of apples, and so we went up to the Percy farm and made 20 gallons of cider. Then we had to lower the jugs with baling twine into the well that was in the cellar below the garage. The last gallons to come up had a bit of fizz, and so I let a couple of the older guys on the school bus have a little nip on our way to school. My thermos would pop when we opened it. The other idea was a fantasy of hooking up the big John Deere A to the manure spreader, full, and taking it down to Newport Center and letting it go through the middle of town.”
AR: “..funny where we went with that photo – I was struck with how much of a set, or “installation” it was, with the sun stage left as a big old floodlight, and then went on to figuring out the meta message: simplicity, the old days, connection with the past, the perennial and bountiful harvests ??? All with a wonderful allure, for sure.. you know, I initially put the one with the gents up on the site, but it was too busy for me, so shifted it to the other one ..”
MH: “Well, one thing you learn from farming is that there is no perennial bounty; it’s more like a rhythmic cycle of lean and bountiful. I could expound on that a bit in telling the cider story…? I can tell that the writer and the guy behind the camera see things in different ways- -one looking for a story, and one looking at the story.”
MH: “..I can even hear the conversation by the pickup, ‘Guess I ought to tell Ms. Smith that I borrowed a few of her pumpkins; maybe she’ll take an ounce of my medical weed for her arthritis as payment.'”
AR: “..yep it’s a whole new world out there..”
AR: “..the manure spreader in downtown Newport could be a very funny short story..”
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I highly recommend the general store/eatery at the eastern end of this bridge; take in the mix of old and new, order a Treehugger sandwich with avocado and some double cut fries, and slow down to whatever music is wafting about the store – some soft Brazilian rhythms on the afternoon of my visit.
Norma, one of the owners, said the rains from Hurricane Irene brought this “stream” up to the base of the bridge, probably 16 feet above the riverbed.
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