Picture it: January 10. It's Phase 1 of the North Woods move and 70+ boxes of dishes, files, books, and clothing form a labyrinth through the house. The Time Warner Cable guy is threading lines that will offset my Verizon cell phone's mountain-challenged message "searching for service".
Lots of interesting things can happen when you're incommunicado. In this case, I had been volunteered to write a cover story on the founding village of Waterford for the 2011 municipal report by out-going assistant clerk and treasurer Sharon Payeur.
The report’s on-line and print publication herald the northern New England tradition known as Town Meeting Day, a participatory act of democracy in which officials are elected, budgets are discussed and voted on, and other civic business as may be warranted occurs. It’s a state-wide holiday and in Waterford, at least, the proceedings start at 9 a.m. The hearing on the school budget starts at 11 a.m.
In all there are 26 articles up for consideration, though Senator Bernie Sanders’ wish to start the ball rolling on repealing the Supreme Court’s decision that recognized corporations as “persons” is not one of them. That electoral issue aside, Town Meeting Day here is so not how it’s done in highly urbanized New Jersey. I’m looking forward to observing a tradition that echoes how government worked in the 1700s.
Town Reports all feature some kind of civic-oriented editorial. As two of my ancestors had served elected office, I felt some duty to honor the request, and had only three questions:
"When's the deadline?"
Phase 2 of the North Woods move was still ahead of me: I had to return to Jersey; do an AAUW workshop with musician Maureen McCrink on the former farm fields of Freehold; close on the sale of my house with a day trip to Newark's Ironbound neighborhood during which my lawyer would startle me with his repeated advice to buy a gun and an American flag (I got the flag covered!), and retrieve the tiger tabbies who were hanging out in Asbury Park.
My due date was 12 days away. Plenty of time to root around in the never-ending mystery that is Waterford and Pike history. However, thanks to the Internet and the town’s History Group, lost passages are emerging. A recent entry represents a Herculean effort by Beth and Dave Kanell to scan and post the names of all those who mustered up from Waterford to fight in the Civil War. Waterford, Vermont, History . Beth even found one of my ancestors had crossed the river and the Granite State to enlist in Maine; sadly, he died fighting for the Union in South Carolina.
"Can I choose the cover photo?"
My father's only remaining sister, known throughout my life as Aunt Bet, was a wonderfully kind woman who really wove the threads of our clan's direct history. I hear her voice in letters to my father. And I cheer when she takes him to task with words only she is entitled to use because a lot of her help got him through scrapes, big and small, because she prized family above all else.
In the modest cache of photos from the Upper Waterford days that I inherited is the unique portrait of her with her paternal grandfather Robert T. Pike. She was in high school. Still called Beth by the family. When I first found it, I framed it and then carried it with me to a number of addresses.
“What’s the word count?”
About 1,000, I was told. I delivered a little more than 1200. And then personally drove the photo to the independently owned bookstore Boxcar & Caboose in St. Johnsbury which diversified a number of years ago with a print-on-demand service for writers and local governments which, by law, have to produce reports accounting for how taxpayers' money is spent.
For nearly two years my website's tag line was "making his story her story". This year, in the Waterford Town Report of 2011, the Pike women get some of their stories told right along side those men who helped put this river town on the map.
Interested in a hard copy of the Town Report? The pre-town meeting is tonight at 7 p.m. in the school gym on Duck Pond Road.
Lots of interesting things can happen when you're incommunicado. In this case, I had been volunteered to write a cover story on the founding village of Waterford for the 2011 municipal report by out-going assistant clerk and treasurer Sharon Payeur.
The report’s on-line and print publication herald the northern New England tradition known as Town Meeting Day, a participatory act of democracy in which officials are elected, budgets are discussed and voted on, and other civic business as may be warranted occurs. It’s a state-wide holiday and in Waterford, at least, the proceedings start at 9 a.m. The hearing on the school budget starts at 11 a.m.
In all there are 26 articles up for consideration, though Senator Bernie Sanders’ wish to start the ball rolling on repealing the Supreme Court’s decision that recognized corporations as “persons” is not one of them. That electoral issue aside, Town Meeting Day here is so not how it’s done in highly urbanized New Jersey. I’m looking forward to observing a tradition that echoes how government worked in the 1700s.
Town Reports all feature some kind of civic-oriented editorial. As two of my ancestors had served elected office, I felt some duty to honor the request, and had only three questions:
"When's the deadline?"
Phase 2 of the North Woods move was still ahead of me: I had to return to Jersey; do an AAUW workshop with musician Maureen McCrink on the former farm fields of Freehold; close on the sale of my house with a day trip to Newark's Ironbound neighborhood during which my lawyer would startle me with his repeated advice to buy a gun and an American flag (I got the flag covered!), and retrieve the tiger tabbies who were hanging out in Asbury Park.
My due date was 12 days away. Plenty of time to root around in the never-ending mystery that is Waterford and Pike history. However, thanks to the Internet and the town’s History Group, lost passages are emerging. A recent entry represents a Herculean effort by Beth and Dave Kanell to scan and post the names of all those who mustered up from Waterford to fight in the Civil War. Waterford, Vermont, History . Beth even found one of my ancestors had crossed the river and the Granite State to enlist in Maine; sadly, he died fighting for the Union in South Carolina.
"Can I choose the cover photo?"
My father's only remaining sister, known throughout my life as Aunt Bet, was a wonderfully kind woman who really wove the threads of our clan's direct history. I hear her voice in letters to my father. And I cheer when she takes him to task with words only she is entitled to use because a lot of her help got him through scrapes, big and small, because she prized family above all else.
In the modest cache of photos from the Upper Waterford days that I inherited is the unique portrait of her with her paternal grandfather Robert T. Pike. She was in high school. Still called Beth by the family. When I first found it, I framed it and then carried it with me to a number of addresses.
“What’s the word count?”
About 1,000, I was told. I delivered a little more than 1200. And then personally drove the photo to the independently owned bookstore Boxcar & Caboose in St. Johnsbury which diversified a number of years ago with a print-on-demand service for writers and local governments which, by law, have to produce reports accounting for how taxpayers' money is spent.
For nearly two years my website's tag line was "making his story her story". This year, in the Waterford Town Report of 2011, the Pike women get some of their stories told right along side those men who helped put this river town on the map.
Interested in a hard copy of the Town Report? The pre-town meeting is tonight at 7 p.m. in the school gym on Duck Pond Road.