When I read TPTB’s plea for content I got out the Post-It on which I jot down ideas for the next edition of “Vermont Vignettes” and started composing the first item on the list. It turned out to be much longer than I recalled. Despite encouragement from many people back in the day I never wrote this up because it was too local and too current. I didn’t want to post it on my web site and I didn’t want to e-mail it to select people because of the certainty it would leak and would piss people off. It’s important not to piss people off when you live in a small town.
But it’s been nearly 20 years, this is an obscure enough forum, and I’ve obscured things a bit. Because of the length you get only one Vignette this time.
The Cemetery Story
When in the late 80’s I moved to North Nowhere Vermont and bought my first 10 acre lot of hilly woodland near the end of a dead end road I discovered I wasn’t the the first one there. Some Orthodox monastics from Burlington previously bought the much better adjacent lot. It has a trail going up into the woods. Their plan to was to build a hermitage of small cabins for periodic retreats from the bustle and bright lights of the Big City. Neighbors! We became the best of friends.
Fast forward 20 years. For reasons satisfactory to all I bought their lot and leased it back to them. The community’s leader Bishop T. died of cancer due to old age. The new leader Father, later to be Bishop, L.[1] wanted Bishop T. to be buried in a consecrated Orthodox cemetery. Those are hard to come by in Vermont but Father L. had 10 acres to play with. According to the terms of the lease he didn’t need my permission to start a cemetery but he politely asked and I politely agreed. Since I was local I also agreed to look into the legalities at the Town Hall.
So the next morning I went to the Town Hall and spoke to the Zoning Board Administrator which is one of the Town’s few paid positions outside of the Road Crew. Her job is to man a desk in the Town Hall for a few hours a week and tell supplicants what paperwork they need to fill out to bring petitions to the Zoning Board at the next monthly meeting.
“I want to start a cemetery.” I told her.
She was only slightly fazed, “I think you need a variance.”
So I took the variance form which was: Name, Address, and WTF Are You Trying To Do Now?; filled it out, paid the modest fee, and started planning the petition.
That was October. The next day was a possible “Last nice day of the year” so I decided not to go into town and instead enjoy the sun and warmth to the extent I could because my back was killing me. I was outside exercising the Adirondack chair and stockpiling some last-minute vitamin D when I saw a car go past up the road. And then another car. And then another. And another. This not usual near the end of the dead end road.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys.” I decided. If it weren’t for my aching back I’d have hiked up to find out what was going on.
Twenty minutes later Father L. walked up my driveway and asked if I would be so kind as to use my ATV to get Bishop T.’s coffin up the trail to the site of the new cemetery.
Back then I had a Recreative Industries MAX II six-wheel amphibious ATV[2] I used for tooling around the wood’s old logging trails and giving excited kids brief rides if a shallow body of water was available. I also had two trailers: A big one I used for hauling the ATV when it needed it and a small one for hauling firewood. The big one was too big to go up the trail and the small one was too small for a coffin.
But because MAX IIs are amphibious and built like a stubby boat the top of the chassis is flat. Father L. and I thought the coffin might fit on top. The constraining factor was the width of the roll bar.
Father L. hiked back while I prepared for an expedition despite my aching back. I drove next door and up the hermitage driveway to find a crowd such as the lot had never seen. I don’t know what Father L. told them but it couldn’t have been much because one man tried to wave me off during my approach.
The ATV was deemed too plain for the privilege of carrying Bishop T’s coffin so the passenger/coffin side was dressed up with a plush velour drape that probably got badly torn during the proceedings. The coffin was loaded into place leaving me with barely enough room on the driver’s side to fit my torso through. The skid-steer ATV is steered with two paddles, like a tank, and both paddles were under the coffin.
Then I was informed Orthodox ritual demands whenever a coffin is in motion everyone must touch it and follow it while singing a hymn. This presented a few difficulties. First, the trail up into the woods was narrow with scrappy trees growing on both sides. I only kept it wide enough for the ATV. I never anticipated a crowd of hanger-oners. Second, the trail is steep and the ground was damp. With the load I’d have to obtain some speed to get up without slipping. A leisurely drive up at a convenient walking/singing pace wasn’t going to happen.
I informed the congregation of these facts, put the ATV into gear, and drove up. Some of the younger men actually managed to hold on and get up there with me.
Unbeknownst to me Father L. had someone with a small excavator go up and dig a grave hole in one of the few flat places of the lot. I parked the ATV next to it. When the other congregants arrived I talked a woman who was taking pictures into taking a picture of the ATV and its load. The coffin was still on the ATV when I hiked back down to my cabin. I am not Orthodox, I hate funerals, and my back was killing me.
I was enjoying my renewed acquaintance with the Adirondack chair when Father L. walked up my driveway and asked if I had anything to drink. I thought he’d be an essential participant of the proceedings but apparently not. Or maybe he just really needed a drink. I got out a bottle of tawny port I kept for just such occasions and we self-medicated until Father L. decided he really should get back up there. He revealed to me his excuse to the congregation for leaving was to see if I had a shovel because the grave hole needed to be filled and there were only a few shovels. I fetched my spade shovel and we hiked back up just in time for the grave filling. My memories at this point are vague. I don’t recall driving the ATV back down to my cabin but I do recall a boy congregant grabbing my shovel and nearly slicing my foot in half in his zeal to participate. Also, the man who tried to wave me off during my initial approach came up to me nearly in tears to thank me for the help.
The next day I went back to the Zoning Board Administrator and said, “Do you remember my cemetery application?” She nodded yes. “They buried Bishop T. there yesterday.” This time she was fazed.
This started a drama that my friends who were uninvolved found immensely amusing. Father L. called me twice to gloat at how simple and easy the burial went. The first time I humored him and agreed. The second time I ripped him a new one informing him the Zoning Board was PISSED! and a lot of petition work I thought I had two weeks to do now had to be done yesterday. I told him it was possible the Zoning Board could order Bishop T. dug back up and I suggested he get a lawyer.[3]
I went up to the cemetery site, did some surveying, and drew up a site diagram with offsets to the adjacent lots, the trail, and the road. The Green neighbor on the other side was concerned Bishop T.’s un-embalmed body might contain chemotherapy toxins or radioactives that would leech into the ground and contaminate her well. I went to the Zoning Board meeting and my preparation was so powerful they voted they had no jurisdiction over new cemeteries. They referred the issue to the governing Select Board and an item was added to the agenda of their next meeting.
At this point the new cemetery was the Talk of the Town. A good friend on the Select Board told me they actually went up the site to take a look. To the meeting Father L. brought an obnoxious lawyer with a reputation in Vermont. The Select Board Chairwoman took me aside to ask who was he representing: The monastics or myself? If it had been myself I would have lost a lot of credibility.
The lawyer sited the 1993 Federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act as why the Town couldn’t interfere with the establishment of a religious cemetery. The Board was mostly concerned with the fact that under Vermont law the Town would be required to maintain the cemetery if the owner or operator didn’t do so. This would require the Town have legal access to the site. Father L. and I agreed creating an access easement to the Town was appropriate.
The Select Board also voted they had no jurisdiction over new cemeteries.
In retrospect the Zoning Board was wrong and they did have jurisdiction. Vermont cemetery law is pretty relaxed and you can bury people on your own property as long as certain offsets are satisfied like any other lot-changing endeavor. After the affair I was recognized in town as a cemetery expert and a few people asked me about it. As a result one woman buried her dead husband in her back yard saving a lot of money.
A few years later Bishop L. buried the ashes of a congregant up at the cemetery and it was a few years after that I asked Bishop L. the guy’s name, O., and reported it to the Town Hall to be recorded. Bishop T.’s grave is marked with a Spirit House made from raw cut wood and which is rotting away. O.’s grave is marked with a smooth chunk of white quartz I found in the rock wash of the river across the road from my cabin. The cemetery is one of those that may fade away to be rediscovered generations from now with the only clue to its existence being a map found in the recesses of the Town Hall’s vault.
And those intrepid explorers may not find anything. Occasionally Bishop L. mentions it’s sometimes Orthodox practice to dig up the remains of Saints for the relics. Bishop T. was promoted to Saint T. by the fellows of Mount Athos. Among the Old Calendar Greek Orthodox, Saint T. is known as “The Ambulance” because if you pray for his intersession help happens very quickly.
So that’s how I ended up owning a cemetery in which a Saint is buried. In case you think this all sounds rather unlikely, here’s some photographic evidence:
Footnotes:
[1] Bishop L. is formerly addressed as “Your Eminence”. I only call him that when I want to annoy him.
[2] I still have it. The bearings of the skid-steer transmission are shot. Replacing them is like replacing a heart valve and, after starting the process, I decided to buy new ATV instead. Anyone interested in a project? The 16HP Briggs and Stratton V-twin engine hasn’t been started in over a decade.
[3] Later Bishop L. admitted he found my tirade refreshing because no-one speaks to him like that any more.
Wouldn’t it be more likely that Bishop T (he pities the fool) would be dug up and his bones placed in an ossuary?
I don’t know. I assumed they’d be taken to Mount Athos in Greece.
Bishop T. did have some impressive gold bling he wore when dressed in full regalia. After he died Father L. asked me to make up a little memorial pamphlet one page of which was a list of Bishop T.’s titles. One was “Toppler of Idols” but I read it as “Toppler of Idiots” and the first batch of a few dozen had it that way. Father L. thought my way was 100% accurate but asked I change it for the next batch.
The six-wheeler served as an altar with the coffin on it. It got hosed down with holy water during the proceedings.
So it’s a holy roller?
I *wish* I’d thought of that one 20 years ago.
Holy Roller
(one of my all-time favorite downtempo tracks)
The Flanders and Lovejoys are.
We have an 8 wheeler back at my parents place. It uses a hydraulic drive. It used to float but a couple of the drive chains broke and punctured the hull. So it’s a holey roller.
That reminds me of chains. Coming off the skid-steer transmission there are six chains: fore, aft, and down; to drive the wheels on each side. The green six-wheeler is my second one. The first came with generic chain and I was always taking out half-links to keep the tension as the chains stretched until it was time to replace the chain entirely. The second had O-ring sealed chains that didn’t stretch.
The machine we have was built by LTV trying to get a military contract. The Army didn’t want them so eventually some salesman stopped by the ski area and convinced them it would be great for the mountain. It wasn’t so it came home with my dad one day and I used it to mow the field, collect firewood and do some dirt work (it had a small blade on the front.) It used industrial chains in a similar layout as you described.
LTV KID ours looked like this one but had a Perkins diesel engine in it.
I grew up in Northern NH, our neighbors had a small cemetery for some previous owners of the property.
There are several properties locally with old cemeteries on them.
There’s a Revolutionary War cemetery a little farther down from me on my dead end road. In it is buried an officer of George Washington’s army and his family. It’s maintained by the local American Legion and is marked with a large white marble cube.
One day I was taking a walk down the road and car with out-of-state plates passed me. Shortly later it came upon me again driving in reverse. The occupants thought it was an International Border marker and were horrified at thought they could have unintentionally crossed. And this was pre-9/11 even.
Silly flatlanders. The Canadian border is a few hundred feet /that way/.
Our neighbor’s property had the grave site of the last person to be killed in NH during an indian raid. Peter Poor
Sweet. I’d love to visit some cemeteries that old someday.
Here in my small-ish Ohio town, there are a few Revolutionary War graves, by which I mean veterans who settled in the area and died long after the war, not like a battlefield cemetery.
I was resting alongside the bike path one time after a long ride, and some hippie dude came up and started talking about the weather and how far we’ve gone, etc. He mentioned as he left that there’s a little cemetery atop a nearby hill. I walked up that hill, and sure enough, there’s a little graveyard of the family that owned a farm on that land. Most of the graves had death dates in the early 1800s. The stones were heavily weathered. Most were tilting, some were knocked over, and others were just stumps barely sticking out of the overgrown grass.
@Plink: Peter Poor: “Killed by Indians who were working on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War. Peter was not in active military service at the time. According to two accounts, Peter was on his way back to work from his home after eating his mid-day meal when an Indian shot him and then scalped him. The Indians involved in this incident had been performing raids all over New Hampshire, looting homes and killing residents, and were en-route to Canada when they crossed paths with Peter Poor. After they killed Peter, they ransacked his house. Peter’s wife Elizabeth later fled for southern New Hampshire on horseback with their two small children.”
That’s also a movie. Peaceful savages, eh? Revenge flick for Elizabeth, for sure.
great story
And until now it’s been part of an oral tradition. “Richard! Tell us the Cemetery Story again!” This is the first time I’ve written it down.
That is a tremendous story, Richard.
Orthodox priests are supposed to live with their coffins as a constant reminder of our ultimate fate. The community’s founder, not mentioned in this story, used his as a bookshelf.
Saving money by burying kin on your property does sound very Yankee.
We’re having some damn Yankee weather. Yesterday it was 65F. Tonight’s low is forecast to be 8F. The wood stove is humming and it’s 77F inside. I need to decide whether to put on another chunk of firewood and warm it up so much I won’t need a warm-up fire tomorrow morning or resign myself to building yet another fire. I’ve got some smaller warm-up fire sized pieces of wood but I hate building a fire, warming the cabin up, and then going into town.
We’re the opposite, -12 this morning, snowing now. High of 44 tomorrow and for at least a week. Maple Syrup harvest will commence with the warm weather. We’ll have a fire morning/evening for awhile. We like it a little warmer than some folks.
Your story demonstrated Yankee Ingenuity. Get the job done with the equipment you have.
Thanks, Richard
Close to 80F this week. Too warm, too soon. Mountains didn’t get very much snow this year.
Great story.
Vignettes? I like putting a nice vignette on a fresh salad.
/teasing Richard
a word salad?
LOL!
In Vermont your salad vignette probably has maple syrup in it. It’s not the case there’s so much syrup around here you can’t give it away but there is a lot of it and some people put in everything. The local pizza place adds some to their home-made dough. It’s good pizza but I think it’s too sweet.
🤢
I remember this place, the Waterwheel, having all sorts of flavored maple products. I still like regular maple syrup but all those maple sugar candies were just too sweet.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys.” I decided. If it weren’t for my aching back I’d have hiked up to find out what was going on.
This is one of the most libertarians things I’ve read in a long time.
I… got nothin’.
The story is actually crazier than the headline. Who shacks up with their fifty year older lover for a week after murdering him? Ugh.
Absolutely crazy. I’m just impressed he/she/it was booked into the men’s jail.
That kind of surprised me too.
I dug graves when I was in high school. It is amazing how warm the earth is 6 feet down in Minnesoda winter.
Excuse me while I run off to patent my new idea: A combination cemetery/geothermal heating plant.
A few years ago one of my neighbors bought a heat pump. You’re supposed to put the compressor half outside but he reasoned his basement was a constant 50F so why not put it there? He said it worked great but then I got the impression he took it out. He moved away shortly after so I never found out why.
My woodstove fire is ebbing and so am I. I’m signing off. Thank you for your kind attention.
This was lovely, Richard. You’re a remarkably patient and helpful neighbor. With very fun toys. I wanna cart a corpse! (To a religious event.)
“As a result one woman buried her dead husband in her back yard saving a lot of money.” <– Went better than the woman buried who buried her living husband in the back yard. Help is pricey.
NC State’s mascot is the mangiest looking wolf I’ve ever seen. And while we’re taking about the tournament, don’t forget to join the Glib’s bracket contest.
https://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/mens-basketball-bracket/group/88985/invitation?key=abf5aed6fabdab5f
Sorry, I don’t follow minor league sports. Particularly of cliquey, regional ‘education centers.’ I also don’t follow the NBA or NFL, so there’s that. I’ve also never Fantasy Baseballed or similar. Kooky, that hobby is to me. ($$$, yes.)
I appreciate your doing it, though!
“Dumb cunt! Get out of my life, bitch!”
There’s everyone’s Bobbo, just a few minutes ago.
(No Maguffin; just arguing. Or maybe there is a Macguffin…)
How about a Mcmuffin?
Sorry, long time bachelor so I have no words of wisdom.
I have some TJ’s frozen McMuffins I’d heat up for you (grudgingly, lest there be any hint of flirting or owt like that).
I really do sincerely need to get out of here.
It’s good advice but horribly stated.
I recently moved my business to get away from a toxic landlord, was a giant pain but ultimately worth it. Maybe not equivalent but eliminating toxicity is always good.
Sometimes a joke is just a joke. 😉
Eeek. Apologies for earlier today. I’d just written an aside before I headed off to work. I hadn’t looked at any comments yet. I have learned to lay off my ‘single 38yo male’ thoughts in print, to some success.
You’d be much missed, though I understand taking a break. I’d happily play Scrabble with ya sometime. Octordle is a daily ritual of mine and I reckon I’d be pretty good. *shrug* That’s what they all say?
Apologies, again. I hate to upset the vibe or flow of any setting. (Dreadfully nervous about it, honestly.)
I always admire your candor, wee E. You all so sweet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JziVnT0d6tY
Thankee! And then you lead me to Debbie Harry… (You’re not the only one.) She’s absolutely my (current) Swoony McSnuggle figure. Forty five years ago, she must’ve been so lonely without me.
I don’t know what’s going on, but if I were you, that right there would have crossed my boundaries three different ways. That would be unacceptable..
I hope you two patch things up, and are happy together.
If you two split up, he does NOT get custody of Glibs.
lol
I just got banned from a forum. It wasn’t even anything political. It was likely just an excuse to do what they wanted to anyways. I’d made it known I was a capitalist, and perhaps even the right, but never got into any real debates of any sort. I purposefully avoided threads like those on tariffs or anything political really. This place is FAR LEFT (though disillusioned by believing they’re “compassionate” and “empathetic.”).There are several posts there devoted to “Fighting fascism”, including most of the foul shit you’d expect, but god forbid you make an obvious joke.
Several months ago they “invited” me to learn to be “more empathetic and compassionate”, saying I exhibited overt misogynistic behavior by saying “I’d kick a nun” in order to acquire some hard to get object. It was laughable to be suspended for that.
Not only was I banned but every post I’ve ever made there (well over 1000 of them) has been deleted. That bothers me more than being banned.
The unpersoning is the punishment.
They need to be more empathetic and compassionate to people who disagree with them.
That would be tolerating intolerance, which is intolerable to the tolerant.
The Blurting
Just look at it as more douchebags in the rearview mirror of life.
something something every org not explicitly “right” is taken over by the “left”
Morning, Glibs.
suh’ cuh
Its a balmy 17 deg here by the lake.
Mr Ilium – What did you do?!
Time to commute – catch up later.
Happy hump day!
🐪🌤️😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ24Wj2zZyM
🎶🎶
Leftover leprechaun music.
Leprechauns left a mess in my yard.
Good morning, Sean, Roat, Ted’S., U, Stinky, and Grumble! (Assuming all earlier have staggered off to sleep.)
Morning.
How goes things today?
So far so good. I’ll find out when I get to work whether Zoom’s AI came up with a summary of last night’s Board meeting that merely needs editing to produce acceptable minutes. 🤞😬
How are you?
I slept terribly, but managed to get up in time to commute.
A brief power outage yesterday screwed with my grow lights’ timers. I got them back on, but they’re not properly staggered.
Please remind me which plants you’re tending now.
The Zebra Cactus and my two pepper plants. They’re not dead yet.
🌵🫑🫑😃👍
(Wrong kind of cactus, I know.)
More interesting football news than the EPL
Apparently parents aren’t “stakeholders” (I hate that word) in the education system.
Of course not – stakeholders are the teachers, the administrators, the NGOs, the activsts, the Democrat Party, and the Communist Party.
I was listening to an item on admissions fraud in South African schools, and the report had the jarring line “Education system stakeholders are urging parents to submit accurate information”
South Africa? Replace “The Democrat Party” with “The ANC”.
suh’ fam
whats goody
Good morning, homey!
Belated thank you Richard for the story
Good morning everyone