A Million Little Pieces Of My Mind

I awoke early, and had eggs ready for Chris when he awoke. It didn't take long to strike camp and stow our gear, and then we proceeded slowly, with frequent pauses for That's the store that Mrs. Carpenter, our bus driver, worked at! and That's the school I went to for the start of second grade!

The road was narrow but paved as we left North Concord and headed into Victory. It narrowed further, then the pavement ended and we drove on a gravel surface which continued to deteriorate. The road rose as we topped a small mountain, then descended into Victory Bog. I took pictures compulsively, as every scene seemed more beautiful than the last.

Victory Bog, now part of the Victory Basin Wildlife Management Area in Vermont, has a rich history that includes a pivotal moment in 1969. This was the year when the State of Vermont acquired the land from the New England Power Company, effectively ending a long-standing debate over a proposed dam on the Moose River by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The dam would have flooded the entire basin, which was a cause for concern among state and local conservation groups due to the potential loss of a significant deer wintering area and the unique wetland complex. The acquisition was a triumph for conservation efforts, funded by a combination of Pittman-Robertson monies and state funds generated from the sale of hunting licenses. The Victory Basin now remains a protected area, preserving its diverse ecosystems and historical significance.

And then…after crossing the third one-lane bridge (we kids used to count them when Mom was driving us home)…there it was, on the hillside, just as I remembered: the House.

When I knocked at the door, a woman answered. Hello, I said. My name is Paul Cilwa, and I used to—

She gasped, interrupting: Not the Paul Cilwa?!

That threw me for a moment. Well, I'm the only one I know of…

The Paul Cilwa whose name is on the garage?

It was my turn to gasp. That's still there?

The "garage" was what we had called one of the outbuildings. It was the right size for one, though I don't know that any vehicle was ever brought into it. But when I was a kid, I found a can of barn red paint my dad had bought and painted my name on the door of the garage. I had been unaware of it, but I had left my mark on the place.

I asked if we could camp overnight, and it seemed that the owners had actually created a campground on the property! However, after two years, they had decided to close it; and since the license they had, had expired, they didn't think they could have any campers there.

However, they had also fulfilled my dad's dream of making the place into a lodge, and that was still open. But this particular weekend was the Holiday In The Hills celebration that my mom had helped found! I'd forgotten all about it. It was timed, of course, for the peak fall foliage. So, the place was nearly booked up. But they did have one room left?and it was my old bedroom!

Okay, maybe it wasn't exactly as I remembered it. For one thing, the floor of the old woodshed section of the house, on which Mom had intended to have dances when we kids became teenagers, had collapsed. And the new owners had brought in an Airstream travel trailer for some reason. But, basically it was unchanged.

There were still the two driveways, the Long Driveway that we encountered first when arriving from North Concord, and the Short (steep) Driveway that allowed a person to drive to the house, then back to the road, without ever having to turn around.

On the outside of the house, the paint was the same my mother had had done ten years before. On the inside, the same wallpaper still hung on the walls. In a way it was cool; but the paint was starting to peel and the wallpaper to fade. I hadn't realized until then that restorations don't last forever.

The view from the front of the house was also much the same. The same lawn sloping down to the road; the Moose River could be seen, intermittently, through the trees growing along its banks. To the right was still the Mother Pine guarding her nursery of babies, now grown quite tall on their own.

There were at least two major improvements: Electricity and telephone.

When we had lived here, the power company had not yet run wires into Victory or its neighboring township, Granby. We had installed a generator but most of our neighbors had not. Victory and Granby had established the Holiday In The Hills as a means to raise the money to have electricity brought into the townships. That had happened some years before. And, with the utility poles installed, the telephone was now available as well.

Having established that the house was all right, Chris and I proceeded to check out the area, starting with a hike to Moose River. Knowing how overprotective my mother seemed to be, I was surprised to recall that she had allowed my sisters, then ages 7 and 8, and myself, at 9, to hike down here alone to swim in its waters!

We then drove to Gallup Mills, a crossroads an eighth of a mile north of the House—the Raineys' house was still there!—and then made a right turn towards Granby. The dirt road, meandering over the many hills, was as picturesque as ever.

At the top of one of the hills we suddenly came upon a building I'd forgotten about, surrounded by cars. This was the Cook Shack, built in 1960 specifically for the Holiday In The Hills. Since this was the Holiday In The Hills weekend, it was open and serving a logger's meal for a reasonable price. It was lunchtime, so Chris and I stopped and ate there.

After eating, we continued on our way towards East Concord, where I had gone to school. But when we came upon a stand of birch trees, Chris decided that he had to write a letter home, to his girl…and that it had to be done on birch bark. We found out later that cutting birch bark is illegal, and we apologize to the tree.

And, yeah, okay, I did one, too. But my letter was to my mom.

Finally we came upon the valley at the foot of Miles Mountain, where the hamlet of East Concord is located. It was easy to find my old school, East Concord Elementary, since it was one of the largest buildings there—and it was only a three-room schoolhouse! More amazing, though, was that my teacher, Mrs. Howe, who had taught me in 3rd, 4th, and the beginning of 5th grade was not only still teaching there—she remembered me! Of course, we had written to each other in the years since I'd left Vermont. But it was very cool to see her again—and to be taller than she was!

And in North Concord, we met the former Joyce Lund, with her husband and new baby. Eight years earlier, Joyce had been the prettiest girl in our school; and on that day in October when my mom dropped by before school was over, to pick me up for our journey to Florida, it was Joyce who'd tearfully told me how much she would miss me.

We then returned to the House for the night—which included a meal—and Chris spent the evening writing his letter on the birch bark.

As I mentioned, the room the owners gave us was my old bedroom! The only thing that had changed was the water tank, into which water from the spring upslope poured under the influence of gravity, and then gravity allowed water to flow through taps and a toilet tank downstairs. But now, electrified, there was a pump so the tank, no longer needed, was gone.

I suppose I could have been haunted by ghosts from the past, but I wasn't. I slept soundly, just as I had the last time I'd been there, eight years before.