Hi, my name is Alan and I live in Winooski. I've been living in Vermont for just over a year and a terrible thing is happening...I'm forgetting that I ever lived anywhere else! I moved to Vermont as a mental refugee from New York City. I never planned on moving here, but from the moment I visited during the winter of 2007, I knew that I would be moving here. The really hard part about living in Vermont is that I love it so much. I'm forgetting all my anxieties, pressures, worries and fears. As good as this sounds, it's really scary because I'm also 'forgetting' my career goals, my focus on money and my focus on obtaining material possessions. So I find myself becoming a different person, not able to have the same conversations with the same friends anymore. As difficult as it is to be unmoored from the person I knew as 'me' in the past, I'm glad it's happening. Thanks, Vermont, for creating the setting and place to come back down to earth.

And by the way, I would love to record this for possible use on VPR

The same thing has happened to me -- although that was part of what I was seeking by moving here almost 5 years ago.

The Vermont I moved to is still visible, despite Taft Corners having no farms. Some of it has changed and improved. Vermonters are more accepting of diversity, while holding tight to their work ethic. It is preserving it's environment in important areas like Lake Champlain, and accepting change like wind farms. It has lead the way and then fallen behind in key areas such as gay rights and responsibilities, recycling, public smoking and bottle deposits. But it is even in long dark winters a beautiful place to live. Willing to record...

Gillian, Essex Junction
Posted by VPR News Online Producer, Tim Johnson

I live in the Adirondacks (have been listening to VPR since I could use the 5am sign-on as an alarm clock) and my mother now lives in Hanover. I love taking different routes across Vermont each time I travel. There's no straight route, but we've concluded that Middlebury Gap is the quickest. Brandon Gap is where I saw my first moose.

I'm Lynn from Brandon and have lived in Vermont for all but my first 2 years of life. The Vermont I remember from childhood is cows and sledding and swimming in the pond. As a parent, Vermont was a good place to bring up our children. If we were traveling we would always cheer when we came back over the state line. Now I love Vermont summers (not so much the winters anymore). The summers are green and lush and happy. Vermont is a community where you know your neighbors and you help them out and they help you out. It's Vermont.

(Sorry, I left out my name and town the first time, so let me do this over)

My Vermont is ambiguous: Harsh, but beautiful at its harshest; welcoming, but watch out! As I get older, every winter I ask myself: "what am I still doing here?" And every spring, I look around me and say....."oh yeahhh!" I was born and raised here, and would never seriously consider living anywhere else!

Wes Robertson, Marshfield
I would be willing to record this, but I'm afraid that 15 seconds would not take up enough air time.

In my Vermont, people are in tune with their natural surroundings. These people aren't naturalists, or biologists, or botanists, or environmentalists. They are Vermonters.

On a walk the other day up my long, dirt road, I stepped off the road near a small pond to let a pickup truck by. Instead of simply passing through, the driver, turns out I knew him, stopped and said,"I keep expecting to hear the frogs any day now." "I just heard the frogs, down in the swamp across from my house," I reported, proudly. "Is that right?," he said. "I'll have to go down there and have a listen."

Just then, another car came from the other direction. The man in the truck put it into reverse and backed up to to let the other driver through. The other driver, a woman I know, slowed and rolled her window down and said, "Any frogs croaking in that pond yet ?" "Not here," I said, but I just finished telling Ed that I heard them in the swamp down by my house. It seems we all have frogs on the brain." "Happy Spring," she said, and drove on.

I thought about how fun it was, to be able to talk to anyone, any age or background, about frogs and feel thoroughly, intellectually and socially stimulated. What I really felt was proud. Proud that I had enough sense to stay in my native state. Proud that I know and talk frequently with my neighbors. Proud that something as simple as the sound of croaking and peeping frogs can make me so damn happy.

I also thought about how anxious Vermonters get for Spring and how careful we know to be about expecting too much too soon.

I learned from another neighbor, Norm, the local garage owner, that "It ain't really Spring until the Peepers is froze in three times." Since Norm has lived in Vermont far longer than I have, I believe him.

3 words...Community, Support, Friends!!!
I love my home. We are educated here, we vacation here, we support local growers and craftspeople. We love the arts. We love our neighbors.
Between the landscape and the beauty of Vermont, we will never leave. The green Mountains are so fine to walk in, ski in, hike to top of the ridges, and swim in all the wonderful swimming holes. We paddle her lakes, ponds, and love to camp in all the remote places.
Who needs TV when we have VPR/NPR keeping us updated on all the local and world's affairs.
Our seed is planted now for 23 years. We've cleared the space to grow up and into.
I love my home, my family, and this entire way of life.
Brenda Lee
Stockbridge Vermont

Whenever I leave and return to Vermont, the Green Mountains wrap around me and hug me. I have lived here permanently since the early 1970's and cannot imagine another place I could ever passionately call home. While I dread the gloomy days of winter and the ice more and more each year, spring always rejuvenates my soul and makes me forget such pain. When I visit other places that are paradise, I find that unlike Vermont there is a higher price than bearing winters, eg. isolation, high cost of living, large population, traffic, dangerous political unrest. We have a place that can still be saved and still offers us the joys of living basic with nature. The smells, the views, the culture and our way of living are all part of a package that I have yet to find anywhere else on this planet. I consider myself a true Vermonter even though I was not born here, no matter what Reverend Nutting has argued to the contrary. I love Vermont!

Dot Helling, Montpelier
Posted by Michelle Jeffery, VPR

My name is Becky Kleitz(sounds like eye), and unfortunately for me I no longer live in Vermont. I have been gone now for ten years and it has truely been the worst ten years of my life. I had to leave Vermont because I had gotten divorced and was a single mom with a small daughter and I had to come back to southeast Alabama where my family had moved in the late 1970's, so that I could work full time and have safe decent childcare for my daughter.
Asked about my Vermont, I always say it is the most beautiful state in the nation, and probably the most beautiful place in the world. I say that the people there are hard working, easy going, and accepting of all types of people. I also have to say that my Vermont is not a place that regular working people like myself can afford to live in. It was impossible to make a living wage for someone like me who has no college, and has to work in largely service industry related fields.
It broke my heart to have to leave my home, but I had to go where I could afford to live and feed my daughter. Hopefully someday I will be well off enough to be able to come back to Vermont, but for now My Vermont is a dream I hold on to, a dream unrealized.

Would like to share these thoughts I wrote for a Vemont-born nephew who was living out of the country. Would be delighted to share them on VPR sometime.

Vermont Home

These are your roots
These granite hills
    Of home
Bedrock
   Beneath
     Hosannah color
        Trumpeting
          The Fall of Winter.

Here is your sustenance
     Child
Grown in the
Fertile green
     Of valleys
Watered by
     Small rivers
Flowing free.

Here find your treasure
     Hid
     In the scar
     Of gorges
Carved in the
Deepened dark
So long ago.

Here
     In the blue
     Of snow-fed lake
You'll see
     Your face
By sunset light
     In peace
     In this place
That is
Always
Yours.

(copyright 2000 by this registrant)
Montpelier VT

Maxine, Montpelier
Posted by VPR News Online Producer, Tim Johnson

My Vermont has the most beautiful vista in the entire interstate highway system: the view coming down French Hill on I-89 entering Richmond. In fact, it's amazing how many people know exactly what I mean just from those few words. What makes the panorama of farm fields backed by Mount Mansfield on the left, the old iron bridge in the center and the Winooski Valley backed by Camel's Hump on the right even more beautiful for me is that when I see it I know I will be home in just a few minutes. Of course Vermont has many other beautiful views on it highways and by-ways, but it would take more than the allotted 200 words just to list them all.

My wife and I are not "real Vermonters": we were born and raised in New Jersey at the beginning of the baby boom. When we left our home state to go to college we never looked back. During our first 33 years (a bit more than half our lives, so far) we lived in eight states and one Canadian province. When we had the good fortune to settle in Vermont in 1980, we knew immediately that here was where we would spend the rest of our lives. We have now traveled through all 50 states, 7 Canadian provinces and 29 countries; none of them can hold a candle to Vermont. So, although we are not "real Vermonters," we are Vermonters by choice; which is even better because we know first-hand how superior Vermont is to all those other places.

My Vermont is a place where the shopkeepers in the biggest city in the state know me when I walk in the door. It's a place where my mechanic immediately asks me when I call to make an appointment for service whether I will be bringing in our 1997 or our 2004 Subaru and, when I say the '97, he wants to know if I think I can get another winter out of those snow tires. It's been said that "Vermont is what America used to be," and that "in Vermont we live life in the slow lane." Both those statements are true, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Josh, Richmond
Posted by VPR News Online Producer, Tim Johnson

Thirty Six years ago I came to Vermont to build a stone house on a little piece of land on the side of a mountain. Very young, hopeful, joyful, and optimistic we were. Over the years my love for Vermont has grown. Every morning I awaken to the comfort of my community. Surrounded by an extraordinarily beautiful environment, my community includes Vermont's rich wildlife and natural habitat. Our air is clean, our lands are rich and fertile, our mountains stately, our people independent and strong. Every day in Vermont brings a fresh new perspective. Living here comforts my soul, inspires my mind, clarifies my purpose, and solidifies my resolve to return the gift of love that Vermont has given to me.

Melinda, Huntington
Posted by VPR Online Producer, Tim Johnson

My Vermont is home. I don't use that word lightly! For me it is more than just a place of residence or a place of origin. It goes beyond a familiar or usual setting. Home is a deeply anchored web of roots.

Home means family both in blood and in community; family that includes neighbors who stop everything to run up the hill with shovels in hand to chip away at ice and redirect the spring run-off from flooding your house. Neighbors whose response to “I owe you one,” is “no you don’t…this is what neighbors do.” That night standing saturated to the bone in freezing March rain we stood over our shovels and agreed wholeheartedly that one of the things we love about small Vermont communities is that neighbors are happy to leave you alone and at the same time drop everything to help when you need them.

Of course my Vermont is the greater community too, a place where one person really can make a difference. As a teenager I couldn’t wait to leave and make my mark on this world somewhere else, somewhere bigger, brighter, more exciting. The wanderlust dissipated quickly during my first year of college out of state. Much to my surprise the only place I wanted to be was home—not because I lost ambition, or had given up on my dreams. In fact, quite the opposite was true. I began to see that the very place my ambitions and dreams would come to fruition was right here in Vermont. The urge to give back to the community who gave me so much was overwhelming and for the past ten years that is exactly what I’ve been doing.

My Vermont can’t be explained adequately in words. It is more than the quintessential photographs of brilliant fall leaves, or white church steeples, village greens, or rolling pastures, quiet country inns, or fluffy ski slopes. My Vermont is connection, community, family, the deep comfortable roots of home.

Sarah Jo, Bakersfield

As a resident of nearly 20 years, I have come to realize the special nature or Vermont in so many ways. I had the good fortune to raise three sons here and although they are all currently living out of state for eduacational and career reasons each of them has an interest in returning to Vermont. They have traveled the world and yet Vermont remains in their souls as the ideal place to live. Whenever I travel out of state I understand why. As I drive throughout our state after being away, I appreciate on a deeper level the majesty, the beauty and the essence that is Vermont. The natural beauty of the mountains, lakes, streams and rolling valleys never ceases to bring me peace and comfort that I cannot get anywhere else in the world. There is even a unique scent to our state that is part and parcel of the whole organic essence of Vermont. When we visited the southern US this winter we were asked again and again why we stay here and why don't we move south? How can I explain to someone something that is at times intangible to me? Vermont is a way of life not just a place and that is a life lesson I now understand and have passed on to my sons. My husband and I are proud and grateful for the opprotunity to live here and to have raised our sons here. So when I am aksed why do we stay here I simply say, "Why would I leave paradise?"

Nan, Rutland
Posted by VPR Online Producer, Tim Johnson

I want very much to move back to Vermont. Our family left central Vermont in 2001 for a job opportunity that resulted in my husband's lay-off two years later across the lake in Plattsburgh, and since that time it has been impossible for me to find work that was the same managerial caliber of what I had in Vermont.

What it means to live in Vermont compared to upstate New York is true freedom of religion; respecting the rights of all individuals to worship as they choose without subjugating the value of one faith for another. Freedom to be a Patriot but believe passionately that being in Iraq is wrong. Respect for all individuals regardless of race or sexual preference. Belief that doing what is right for the environmental future requires simultaneously correcting past wrongs. Accepting that a positive future lies in the health of children
and paying for it through meals at schools and after care programs across the state. Accepting no less than health insurance that cares for all not just the healthy.

And I passionately miss that my Congressional and Senatorial representatives are on the forefront of publicly chastising the Bush Administration's policies. Go Bernie! I voted for you when you 1st ran for office in Burlington. And go get um Senator Leahy!

Hannah, Keeseville
Posted by VPR Online Producer Tim Johnson

Epitaph on gravestone in Charlotte, VT: “They loved Vermont.” Author Keith Warren Jennison titled his vintage book, “Vermont is where you find it.” You wonder what it is, unless you are from here, and in the sense you get “it.” I know I love Vermont, too. When I walk along the paths past the *camps (meaning cottage, not fancy as summer home implies) I think of all my extended family, my first cousins, second cousins and probably some other category of cousin. I remember that my father was a teen here, a consummate reader who at fourteen just wanted to lie in a cool room and read and reflect in his own world. We did that at the same age except that we read comics bought from trips on the ferry over to NY and brought back to share. The friendships formed over a summer of card games after days spent in the lake or walking head down, scanning the shore for those abundant fossils from the rocky shale beach. This sense of place, keeps me ever vigilant on my commute to work. Always looking and sensing it. The state of beauty Vermont is, tangible and transcendent.

Vicki, Charlotte
Posted by VPR Online Producer, Tim Johnson

"I'm a real Vermonter." This was the first conversation I had in Vermont that didn't involve housing, travel expenses, or job interviews. I had gotten the job, found a place to live and settled my expenses. It was my first day at work, and I was training with a co-worker. "I'm a real Vermonter," he said. This struck me as strange. I had lived in New York and Pennsylvania and never heard anyone describe themselves as a "real New Yorker" or "real Pennsylvanian." What did that mean? Worse, my partner in parley, was giving me an expectant look. Obviously, I was obliged to respond in some way, but how? Genuflect? Secret handshake? I mustered an unambiguous "Really?" He described with with pride his Vermont lineage of many generations, and unapologetically, his distain for flatlanders. His greatest pride was his ancestor's association with Ethan Allen, and his greatest distain was reserved for out of state developers. We became friends in spite of my pointing out to him that Ethan Allen was from Connecticut and moved to Vermont to get rich developing it. The term "flatlander" confused me. I met one Vermont resident who moved here from the Rockies of Colorado and she was still called a flatlander. I learned that New England is host to 111 high peaks --that is peaks over four thousand feet high. Of these, Vermont is host to five. This fact made Vermont appear to be the great prairie of the northeast. I had to find out for myself. I camped in the forests at every opportunity; hiked and snowshoed stretches of the Long Trail. I attended presentations and lectures about Vermont and studied the history. I fished and swam the lakes and rivers, and went to expos and fairs. I marveled at the post card scenery at every turn. The beauty of this state amazes me. Any comparable location in New York or Pennsylvania would be overcrowded, but in Vermont, I often enjoyed the scenery alone. Another aspect of Vermont that surprised me was the freedom. If you see a beautiful trout stream and you want to jump in. Do it. Want to jump in from a nearby cliff? Do it. Want to drink a beer and jump from the cliff? Do it. No one will stop you. Vermonters likely take this freedom for granted, but I came from a state where such behavior is forbidden. New York State parks in the Finger Lakes region forbid hikers from wadingin the streams, let alone swimming unsupervised. I have come to recognize that a real Vermonter is someone with a strong work ethic and ties to the land. They have a beautiful state and a proud heritage. Their products have quality and attention to detail that justifies the premium consumers are willing to pay for them. Indeed, my concern is that this premium for Vermont products is in jeopardy. The threat is from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Vermont Yankee has been a model for other nuclear plants. Small and manageable in size, it has performed laudably throughout its history. It should be allowed to pass into history with that proud record. This is not happening. Instead, as it is approaching the end of its life, its output is being increased to twenty percent over its design limits, and a proposal to increase its projected design life by twenty years is being considered. Ask any design engineer to stress his product --be it furniture, electronics, or structures-- twenty percent beyond design limits. Ask him to do so beyond the design life of the product, and he will tell you it is a recipe for failure. These limits are based on physics and materials science. Exceeding them erodes the redundancy built in that is our margin of safety. Nuclear power is not an area where we can afford to learn from our mistakes. The recent cooling tower failure is an indicator of the age and condition of the plant. Even though the tower is outside the plant where it can be observed, and had recently been inspected, its collapse caught everyone by surprise. What about the core that no one can see? What is its condition? I believe this plant's failure to be inevitable. The consequences for Vermont are grave. I doubt that more than a quarter of all Americans could correctly place the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, site of America's greatest nuclear disaster, in Pennsylvania. I expect that even fewer could name the company responsible for India's 1984 Bhopal disaster, Union Carbide. On the other hand, I would expect over ninety percent would know that the company responsible for the Exxon Valdez oil spill was Exxon. Similarly I would expect over ninety percent of Americans would know that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened in Chernobyl, Russia. So when the Vermont Yankee nuclear accident occurs, will there be any doubt where that plant is located? Humans cannot sense radiation, but they fear it with a blind, irrational fear. Even if all the radiation falls on other states, people worldwide will associate the Vermont Yankee nuclear accident with only one place, Vermont. The premium for Vermont products will evaporate and even turn negative. Substitute the word "Vermont" with the word "Chernobyl." Would you buy Chernobyl maple syrup? Would you give your grandchild Chernobyl milk or a Chernobyl teddy bear? When this accident happens, even Vermonters will pay a premium for Wisconsin cheese. I've been here eighteen years and have grown to love this state. It is my home. I don't want to see such a jewel end so tragically. I want Vermont products to continue to command a premium, and I want consumers to continue to be willing to pay that premium. I want Vermonters to continue to declare themselves "Real Vermonters" with pride. Now, when someone declares himself a real Vermonter and gives me that expectant look, I knowwhat to do. I apprehensively poke them in the shoulder, and with a look of shock and alarm declare, "Oh my God, you are real." And when they call me a flatlander, I interrupt them and tell them that I am a hellbound flatlander. Yes, I will record this.

John, Hinesburg
Posted by VPR Online Producer Tim Johnson

Vermont is home. I've travelled some of this country and a few others, and while I enjoy travelling there is nothing quite like the feeling of settling back into the green mountains after being away. Here I feel comfortable, safe, content and a part of the land.

Vermont for me is also a struggle, as it is for many Vermonters. I am lucky enough to be able to afford to live here, but not without sacrifice and not without difficulty at times. The price of homes make it impossible for many to afford one. The price of gas makes many things here difficult, as many times there's no easy way to get from A to B.

Vermont (and my family!) have taught me to be useful. I can change a tire, change my oil, cut logs, grow vegetables, start a fire and I don't shy away from work. Vermont encourages one to be useful.

I have thought of moving away to a place that's more affordable or just someplace different. But, Vermont is a place that pulls at one's soul. I was born and raised here, and don't think I could leave. But that's fine with me.

Kait in Chester

Vermont means coming home. There is no more beautiful place in the world I have traveled or where I feel like I belong. Coming home to Vermont makes me happy.

I was raised in Southern Vermont where my Dad ran the Vermont Newspaper Corporation publishing weeklies in four towns. I loved growing up there and was able to return to raise my four sons in Vermont. Two remain in the Burlington area, and now three grandchildren carry on the tradition. My
grandparents and their parents were born in Vermont and both served in the state legislature. Gramma Belknap even wrote what was once the Vermont state song.

My roots are in Vermont and though I now live in Washington DC, I return whenever possible to breath the clean air, walk the woods and watersides, and connect with family and friends. Even though I have been living away from
Vermont for seventeen years, I still bank, buy clothes and goods, have my car serviced where I feel I can trust the local merchants. I like keeping my money circulating in Vermont.

It is the place that has offered so many opportunities: my education, my family's health and happiness, a chance to create prison gardens in four of Vermont's correctional facilities, a chance to be a part of the history of
the Americans with Disabilities AcT (ADA) and carry Vermont's exemplary influence to our nation's capitol and states. I will always love Vermont. It will always be home to me.

Nancy, Washington, DC
Posted by VPR Online Producer, Tim Johnson