Summertide

Savoring the solstice in the heart of New England

Village center, Wilmington, Vermont.

Greetings from Wilmington, Vermont, a frequent destination and pass-through point for my wife and me over the course of the last fifteen years or so. (This year we’ve returned to the Wilmington Inn for her birthday.) Located in the south-central part of the state, with Bennington on one side and Brattleboro on the other, Wilmington feels safely Green Mountainish despite its proximity to the Massachusetts border, which, among other things, means cooler weather than we’re getting back home. We like the village, outside our doorstep at the inn, for its local bookstore, coffee shop, good hiking along the Deerfield River, and a solid complement of restaurants. It’s the kind of place we might like to retire to someday if we can ever extricate ourselves from our mortgage, children needing a bed, or our desire to be close to family in metropolitan New York. (So perhaps not likely.)

Yesterday we made a side trip to the impressively endowed Bennington Museum, which has great exhibits on Grandma Moses, the 1777 Battle of Bennington—prelude to the smashing victory of Saratoga—and some nice holdings from the forties in particular, when Bennington College seems to have been in some ferment as intellectual hipster haven. (Shirley Jackson’s husband taught there, and she wrote classics like The Lottery in North Bennington.) I was struck while driving down Main Street how the town is already geared up for the nation’s sestercentennial next year, with banners of local luminaries of the Revolution lining the streets. Maybe history isn’t such a bad business after all.

Next week I will continue with my series of letters to my granddaughter Leila, trying to capture to state of the union before pivoting toward trying to make sense of some recent scholarship on generational continuity and change. Happy summering to all.