In Vermont, fighting the virus and killing the game dinner

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary’’ in GoLocal24.com 

Vermont, under the firm leadership of old-fashioned moderate (and anti-Trump) Republican Gov. Phil Scott, has been a leader in controlling COVID-19 through tight travel/quarantine rules, adherence to face-mask rules and, probably most important, the Green Mountain State’s traditionally strong, unselfish civic sensibility. Now, as the virus explodes around America, it faces new challenges. States can’t post the National Guard at all roads leading into their states to check for possibly infected travelers from high-risk places! But I’m pretty sure that Vermont will face its COVID challenges decisively and effectively.

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Of course, some would say that the fact that Vermont is a largely rural state makes it easier to control the spread of COVID-19. But look at how terrible the rural Red States, such as in the Great Plains, are doing with it! And consider that Vermont is in the Northeast, the  nation’s most densely populated region.

A kitchen interior with a maid and a lady preparing game, c. 1600.

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I try to avoid eating animals, especially my fellow mammals, but I’ll miss  (well, in a way) the annual game dinner at the Congregational church in Bradford, Vt.,  which has been cancelled, perhaps permanently, after 64 years. I had attended, off and on, with a bunch of friends since 1989. I went after friends’ annual relentless urgings that I join them.

The proximate cause of the cancellation, of course,  was the pandemic. Couldn’t have all those folks sitting shoulder to shoulder at those long, communal tables.  But before COVID, the church had had increasing difficulty in getting people to work at the event, the church’s biggest annual fundraiser.

Another little piece of Americana goes down.

In Bradford, once a thriving small manufacturing town, originally because of water power: Woods Library and Hotel Low, c. 1915 postcard view.