Greetings from Vermont!\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s plan was to jump on the Long Trail and hike to the top of Bromley, but Mother Nature messes with the best of intentions.\u00c2\u00a0 We woke up and it was me and Felice and rain on the roof (although John Sebastian was nowhere in sight…)\u00c2\u00a0 After cruising the outlet shops, we entered the Northshire Bookstore and Felice noticed a sign pointing to an area for laptop users, and upon confirming there was free wi-fi, I scooted back home and picked up my laptop (Felice was smart enough not to travel without hers…)<\/p>\n
Actually, it’s not our house anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother sold it.\u00c2\u00a0 To a gentleman who agreed to let us continue to use it.\u00c2\u00a0 And despite my mom telling me he’d made the house his own, this proved to be untrue.\u00c2\u00a0 When I entered the storage closet and saw my father’s Rossis, my heart sank.\u00c2\u00a0 He loved this place.\u00c2\u00a0 Moe Lefsetz, the least handy man to ever set foot on this earth, used this Vermont domicile as his playhouse.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember encountering him sawing wood with a mini-chainsaw atop the marble doorstep.\u00c2\u00a0 Cancer got to him first, but I was always wondering if a home improvement project would do him in.<\/p>\n
Monday we drove around the Magic Triangle, the Hub, two appellations for the Bromley, Stratton, Magic area that were heavily used in the sixties but have since been abandoned.\u00c2\u00a0 Like so many of the chalets on Stratton.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the pinnacle, the height of affluence, a home on the access road, just beneath the base lodge.\u00c2\u00a0 But those edifices now seemed puny in comparison to those constructed by today’s he-men of the universe, the big swinging dicks who raped our financial system and built temples to themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 All my memories, of playing bumper pool and throwing freezer-burned ice cream outside of Sally Jayson’s window, were minimized when I confronted the palace in my mind.\u00c2\u00a0 It was small.\u00c2\u00a0 The years had taken their toll.\u00c2\u00a0 I realized ashes to ashes, dust to dust was true.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t only people, but our structures.\u00c2\u00a0 We were only here for a limited time.\u00c2\u00a0 To be replaced by worldbeaters whose efforts trumped ours and then too were replaced.\u00c2\u00a0 It was depressing.<\/p>\n
Tuesday we drove up to Middlebury.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt strangely disconnected from the college.\u00c2\u00a0 Enough years had gone by that I’d emotionally detached.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything was familiar, but I now lived in California.\u00c2\u00a0 But when we dropped over the mountain via the scariest road in Vermont, the fabled Route 17, and were confronted with Mad River Glen, I was stunned how steep it was. Trumping almost all of Vail’s slopes.\u00c2\u00a0 No wonder I became such a good skier.\u00c2\u00a0 The slopes, never mind the conditions, in Vermont are hard!<\/p>\n
After spending the night with my old college roommate Lyndon and his wife Joanne in Waitsfield, we drove north on Route 100, stopping at legendary Small Dog Electronics.\u00c2\u00a0 Funny how a local Apple specialist can become a national business via the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Small Dog used to only service the Mad River Valley.\u00c2\u00a0 Now I’ve purchased an extra hard drive from the comfort of my home in Santa Monica.<\/p>\n
Then we followed some school buses through Waterbury, scooted under Route 89, and came upon one of Vermont’s most famous tourist attractions, the Ben & Jerry’s factory.<\/p>\n
I’d been twice before.\u00c2\u00a0 The memories were exquisite.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the tour guide dropping a bucket to the production floor, where people dressed like the sperm in that Woody Allen movie poured in butter pecan ice cream via a giant fire hose and when we finally tasted the retrieved, not yet frozen elixir, we were in heaven.\u00c2\u00a0 Truly the best ‘scream I’ve ever tasted.<\/p>\n
But that was twenty years ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, Ben & Jerry themselves are gone, made redundant by Unilever, the conglomerate they had to sell to in order to maintain distribution, and the factory has turned into a Disney-like attraction, where they even charge you, although they did give us a free scoop of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream.<\/p>\n
Before we shot over to the dip shop, where I concocted a Core Sundae comprised of Chunky Monkey, Phish Phood and hot fudge, I went to the history wall, where the story of Vermont’s most famous concoction was revealed.<\/p>\n
They learned how to make ice cream from a five dollar correspondence course from Penn State.\u00c2\u00a0 Doesn’t matter if you went to music school, if you’ve got a Ph.D., how does your music sound?<\/p>\n
Ben & Jerry’s music, their ice cream, was damn good.\u00c2\u00a0 They had immediate success.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t have immediate success playing music, maybe you need to give up, view it as a hobby.\u00c2\u00a0 Anyone can tell when something is great, and most things aren’t.\u00c2\u00a0 There aren’t numerous Ben & Jerry’s, only one.\u00c2\u00a0 An innovative team who did everything in their power to make it. They needed to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 Their education left them no other opportunities.<\/p>\n
They gave away free cones on their birthday.\u00c2\u00a0 And every dip shop still does.<\/p>\n
They started showing movies on the side of the gas station that was their original facility.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually tying in other Burlington merchants and decamping to an even better, rooftop location.<\/p>\n
And speaking of the gas station, they had to move.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what happens when you’re a success.\u00c2\u00a0 Your customers drive you to expand.\u00c2\u00a0 This was after Ben & Jerry ran out of ice cream, the demand being so high.<\/p>\n
The innovative marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 Driving a converted bus cross-country and giving away free samples.\u00c2\u00a0 Said bus eventually burning up in Ohio.\u00c2\u00a0 Making a flavor, their best selling, named after a Grateful Dead member, an idea that was proffered by a customer.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, a great band listens to its audience.\u00c2\u00a0 Fans believe, they only want to help.<\/p>\n
But worldwide domination wasn’t instant.\u00c2\u00a0 It took nearly two decades to literally encompass the globe.\u00c2\u00a0 This was after David Letterman did a top ten list of the least popular Ben & Jerry’s flavors.\u00c2\u00a0 This was after the President named them Small Business Persons of the Year.\u00c2\u00a0 Honors are nice, but they’re only a step along the way.<\/p>\n
Ben & Jerry were rock stars.\u00c2\u00a0 Men who didn’t believe in the system, who needed to do it their own way, who could only do it their own way.\u00c2\u00a0 They gave back, eventually making an ice cream bearing the moniker of Vermont’s most famous band, which gave its share of the profits to charity.\u00c2\u00a0 Ben & Jerry were in bed with their customers.\u00c2\u00a0 They sold stock, the proceeds of which were badly needed for expansion, to Vermonters only, who wanted to help their own, who were giving back by only using the milk of Vermont cows, keeping the local farmers in business.<\/p>\n
Don’t listen to Mr. Big.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling you to put on nice clothes and play the game.\u00c2\u00a0 Create something great.\u00c2\u00a0 And once you get traction, utilize your most innovative, left field ideas to spread the word.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no rules when it comes to a music career. Other than that your music must be great.\u00c2\u00a0 No amount of innovative marketing can cover bad music up.<\/p>\n
After the Ben & Jerry tour we stopped at the Cider House, partaking of the divine nectar and some cider donuts.\u00c2\u00a0 Then up to Stowe, passing through the Notch from Mt. Mansfield to Smuggler’s.\u00c2\u00a0 We poked around Lake Champlain, and as the sun set over the Adirondacks, we took that ride down Route 7 from Burlington, through Middlebury and Rutland, all the way back to Manchester, mountains on the left, possibilities to the right.<\/p>\n
I left Vermont for those possibilities.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m not complaining, I’ve got no regrets.\u00c2\u00a0 But part of me is still here, part of me belongs in Vermont.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s great to be here.<\/p>\n
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