Murder most poignant: Riveting local history takes the stage

On May 29, 1897, Mildred Brewster, age 20, and Anna Wheeler, 17, strolled together under rainy skies through a residential Vermont neighborhood. The New York Times described what followed, in an article bearing the headline "Montpelier Love Tragedy": "As they were passing along a by-path, which leads to the boarding house whence Miss Wheeler was going, Miss Brewster suddenly drew a revolver and fired a shot almost point-blank into the side of Miss Wheeler's head."

The next day's follow-up piece reported that Miss Brewster had asked the doctor if Miss Wheeler was alive. "When told she was not, she closed her eyes, but said nothing," it read.

During the last year, Bellows Falls residents Denny Partridge and Steve Friedman — both veteran stage actors, playwrights and directors — have been discovering the meaning in Miss Brewster's silence. Through intensive research that took them down a labyrinthine path into dusty archives, genealogical shadows and unexpected fountains of information thousands of miles away, they pieced together the before, during and after of what was a disturbing and sensational crime.

The fruits of Partridge and Friedman's investigative efforts converge in "Mildred Taken Crazy," a compact, complex stage production which has them shouldering several dozen roles between them as they sew together facts, speculations and quandaries that have swirled around this compelling case for more than a century.

The play — which runs Friday and Saturday at Main Street Arts in Saxtons River and the Jamaica Town Hall on June 1 — distills their historical detective work down to a mere 40 minutes in a nimbly orchestrated amalgam of potent drama, dark levity, heartfelt song and vivid characters.

While the project has been a monumental undertaking for Partridge and Friedman, it is also a continuation of what's been a highly successful partnership that includes more than 60 productions, original and classic, performed around in the globe, starting with helping to put the San Francisco Mime Troupe on the map in the 1970s. Various honors, such as Fulbrights, NEA grants and fellowships, an Obie and an AUDELCO, populate their heady resumes, as do distinguished institutions like The New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, Edinburgh's Film Festival and professorships at venerated universities including Barnard, Columbia, NYU and Vassar.

Partridge spent much of her childhood in Vermont and relocating here a few years ago has allowed the two to be nearer to family while still expending their creative energy in what they consider to be fertile artistic ground. Founding Mud Time Theatre last year — whose name comes from Frost's poem "Two Tramps in Mud Time" — they first staged "Mildred Taken Crazy" to great response in Europe last fall and, performing it now for Vermont audiences, are finding the experience even more fulfilling.

In a recent conversation, I asked how they came to discover Mildred Brewster and why they chose to construct an entire play around her.

"A crime is always worth a try, given the best of literature, the Greeks, etc.," Friedman said. "We were looking for Vermont crimes that felt like they could make a play and started going through old newspapers at the library. Somewhere I remembered that an old friend in New York had a poster on her kitchen wall that was the Brewster murder case."

"We'd seen it a million times," Partridge said. "The Montpelier Daily Record had distributed those posters in 1898 and it was a triangle murder case that had always seemed intriguing."

They delved into the coverage of the day, finding morsels of information in several East Coast dailies. "We sat ourselves down in front of microfilm and got to know the press of that time — the story, the players, the ingredients."

"At the trial," Partridge said, "there was standing room only. The jury was all men and the trial was attended by women — sobbing women — and her brothers and her father, who put up everything he had for a classy defense lawyer. It's a real women's story that could describe a woman's experience today — it's undiminished and still resonates."

"She was acquitted for reasons of insanity," Friedman said. "It was a pioneering use of that defense. She was put away in a Waterbury insane asylum but, under Nixon, a law came in that said no medical records from psychiatric hospitals can ever be released."

"Her records are sealed," Partridge said. "We found as much as we could and also what happened after she left the asylum. We searched her and had great help from some terrific people."

The Vermont Archives and a university library in another state opened doors to Mildred's life thereafter that Partridge and Friedman never thought they'd find. "They gave us the research keys and we found Mildred thousands of miles from Vermont," Partridge said.

As is often the case in research projects involving human interest stories, unexpected well-springs of meaning and insight emerged. Three very pleasant such surprises were seated in the front row at a recent staging of "Mildred Taken Crazy" in Montpelier: the great, great, grandnieces of Brewster's victim, Anna Wheeler, had heard of the play and were curious about how it might approach the sorrowful topic with which their lives have been inexorably entwined.

"They wanted to come and hear the other side," Partridge said. "They're lovely women and still have the quilt that Anna had been working on when she was killed — half made."

The esteem that Partridge and Friedman possess for those who have been touched by these events that took place so long ago is palpable, as is their cognizance that it's human nature for people to find tales of anguish somehow captivating. "It's an element of honor and of gossip," Partridge said, "the way certain misdeeds and crimes circulate through everybody's mouths and become the texture and the tissue of what they live on."

Their investigation into the circumstances that preceded the shooting and what transpired thereafter led them to fresh information with regard to Brewster's own demise. "We found Mildred's death certificate," Partridge said, "and other things on it that were relevant to who she was, like a full circle."

"The attraction of the story partly reminds me of a quote by Susan Sontag," Friedman said. "'I know it's art if I don't understand it.' Mildred's story is ultimately like this. A lot seems obvious and familiar yet at the heart of it there's something mysterious that pulled me in and made me want to spend time with her, the way you want to spend time with people who move or intrigue you."

When asked if the title implies that Mildred truly was taken crazy or if rumor reigned back then, the pair's response reveals the depth of their inquiries and attendant quest to establish and expose truth.

"In the trial they were arguing on her family heritage," Friedman said, "since mental illness was in her family and she was given to extremely strange behavior early in life. Everyone who knew her said she was a very strange person. That's part of what's inscrutable about it, the mystery of the motive — what was there in it for her?"

"I go back and forth every day with this," Partridge said. "It also doesn't mean she didn't know what she was doing when she pulled a gun out and shot this woman in the head."

As to what these seasoned actors seek to impart in "Mildred Taken Crazy" — with its stark, single-chair set and compressed reportage of their rigorous research into five decades of history — Partridge is certain.

"The best response is if someone leaves saying 'I just don't know what to think'. We're not trying to tell people what to think, we're trying to give the story life so the thinking is their work."

Reservations: MSA 869-2960

Online: www.mudtimetheatre.com

Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com

Quirky collections and early eco-wisdom: Edifying exhibits are the perfect tonic

Coming back from the left coast would have been easier if another 8 feet of snow had arrived in our absence but somehow, returning to what must be about the fifth mud-season so far this year, was harder. I'm starting to think it's a meteorological fifth dimension, with a groovy theme to go with it (sing along, everyone): "When the mud, is all around the house, and furniture is lined with soil."

When mud is all around the house, the yard, the sidewalks and the state, my tendency each weekend is to find fun things to do in places that are, by definition, dirt-free, and what better destination than museums? As mentioned herein last week, Vermont is home to a constellation of intriguing creative institutions filled with far more than just fine art.

There's the American Precision Museum, the Birds of Vermont Museum, the Cornish Colony Museum, the New England Transportation Museum, the Shelburne Museum and even the American Museum of Fly Fishing. Rumor has it there even used to be a Vermont Wax Museum renowned for its revolving Elvis but, alas, he's left the turntable as the place is now closed. The mind boggles at what else might have been in there … a marble-eyed Hetty Green savoring her fortune or an ashen Ethan Allen being charged with treason?

The top of my unconventional museums list, however — the mother of all treasure troves — is the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury. Vermont's much-celebrated field-trip favorite boasts more than 160,000 natural science, historical and cultural objects that 19th-century industrialist Franklin Fairbanks collected during extensive travels around the globe. Overflowing with everything from Victorian dolls, Egyptian sarcophagi and rare gemstones to paintings, textiles, farm tools and taxidermy — not to mention a planetarium and weather station — the Fairbanks is an ideal place to take friends and family for a remarkably engaging day steeped in vicarious sightseeing and international geographic illumination.

Soaking up this diverse collection is tantamount to taking a slightly surreal jaunt to other continents, distant cultures and past eras, an experience both abundant and intimate, if not occasionally daunting. During my first visit a while back with my daughter's class to what looks from the outside like a Victorian castle, I entered the massive main room, with its barrel-vaulted oak ceiling, and was instantly transfixed by a startling tableau. Just through the main doors, a towering stuffed polar bear the size of a minivan rears up on his hind legs in frozen, bared-ivories rage, dwarfing a massive grizzly and two black bears nearby.

Taxidermy isn't everyone's cup of tea but there is something profoundly stirring, albeit a tad spine-chilling, about being able to examine such gorgeous, colossal creatures up-close and personal. Watching bears on the Discovery Channel or pacing inside far-off cages surrounded by cement moats affords a modicum of enlightenment, of course, yet this was the first time I'd ever been in such close proximity to a species that's universally feared and revered, and it gave me a whole new perspective on their plight.

When I spoke to the Fairbanks Museum's Anna Rubin, she revealed that my reaction was not uncommon and also offered crucial and informative insights into the singular passion and purpose of Mr. Fairbanks who, I gathered, was something of an amateur Darwin of his milieu.

"The practice of collecting natural specimens in the late 1800s was not perceived in the same way we might look at it today," she explained. "It was really in the cause of science and wanting to preserve these animals so they could be studied and protected. All the pieces in the museum are from that era."

Before establishing the museum in 1891, he regularly invited the public into his home to see his "cabinet of curiosity" in which he displayed his eclectic collection, which contains items of international, national and regional interest. One of my favorite displays was on the second-floor balcony, which is brimming with shelves, cabinets and cases of antique dolls, vintage toys and various household and historical artifacts.

Inside a low vitrine is a group of personal possessions dating from the Civil War. I was particularly moved by a small, lovingly handmade sewing kit, given by a local 15-year-old girl to her sweetheart before he left to fight. One can only assume it was found out on a battleground, and the inclusion of that kind of human iconography in the context of a museum containing more than 3,000 natural specimens reflects Fairbanks' holistic view of the world and its inhabitants.

Fairbanks would come back from his trips with assorted pelts, weapons, insects, photographs, costumes, shells and other discoveries that could help to edify his friends and colleagues back in Vermont. Having inherited great wealth from his uncle, who invented the platform scale and founded the Fairbanks Scale Co., Franklin Fairbanks was committed to giving back to his hometown and integrated his own zeal for travel into this impulse.

"He was like many Victorian civic-minded family members who felt a real love for the community," said Rubin. "He wasn't a scientist or scholar but out of a deep appreciation for nature, he brought to this isolated part of New England these views of animals and visions of other parts of the world."

Working with local, self-taught taxidermist William Balch, Fairbanks eventually built a museum to house his finds, an eccentric landscape unto itself, filled with recreations of the flora and fauna that he'd come to cherish in places he knew most of his friends, family and neighbors would never see.

Balch proved to be an innovator in exhibit design as well, crafting lush, convincing dioramas in which he placed the exotic creatures he'd carefully preserved, deftly utilizing materials of the day, such as linen (this was long before plastic's time) to create the illusion of natural habitats. With the same scientific authenticity and remarkable eye for detail that was being employed in New York City's Natural History Museum right around the same time, Balch was, as Rubin reverently put it, "at the cutting edge of interpreting the natural world."

Together, the two men filled custom-made wood-and-glass cases with meticulously arranged environments, including a truly exquisite display of what is thought to be the world's largest collection of hummingbirds. With 131 shimmering specimens presented on realistic-looking trees, replete with nests, under glass at eye-level, it is yet another of the museum's many breathtaking exhibits.

Everyone at the museum clearly venerates Mr. Fairbanks' pioneering sensibilities and generosity of spirit, and with good reason. Though through our 21st-century lens we might consider a room full of posed animals in ersatz environs to be tacitly un-P.C., everything Rubin taught me about Fairbanks' motivations and expansive thinking as a true animal lover convinced me that, were he alive today, he'd probably be out there picketing for PETA and holding fund-raisers for Greenpeace.

The entire collection of the Fairbanks Museum is a manifestation of its founder's global sensibilities, which were evident in his respect for cultural diversity, an abiding love of nature and a staunch devotion to the stewardship of all the world's creatures. It is sobering and inspiring to realize that his visionary achievements pre-saged the very issues with which the human race now struggles, on so many fronts.

Eloquently summing up the magnitude of Fairbanks' accomplishments, Rubin said it best: "The museum is a timepiece, about the Victorian understanding of the natural world and the awesome beauty of these creatures."

Online: www.fairbanksmuseum.org

Move over Martha, Angelica's in town: Savvy 18th C. painter pre-saged feminism

Most of us assume that super stardom is a phenomenon of the last century, a product of the mass media catapulting actors, musicians, writers and other creative types into the public arena via branding through television, film, the Internet and tabloid-gorged pop culture. Though we're regularly bombarded with the ventures and visages of contemporary idols, both ersatz and authentic, and it all seems singularly moderne and cutting edge, it's not.

If we consider such ubiquitous marketing tactics to be the hallmark of post-industrial revolution communications, how then do we explain 18th-century neo-classical painting sensation and cultural über-icon, Angelica Kauffman, who had a similarly diverse and widespread impact on European society that women like Madonna, Oprah and Di have had on ours?

Though her fame wasn't manifest in the form of music videos, magazines, haute couture or talk shows, in the context of the late 1700s, Kauffman was, for all intents and purposes, Fortune 500, rock-star royalty. Her intellect and charisma was renowned and her imagery infiltrated elite echelons and everyday life in the form of lampshades, fans, calendars, architectural design, interior décor and teacups, which is all to say, she was an omni-mediated Martha Stewart in her own time.

Quoting an engraver of the day who was overwhelmed with orders for Kauffman prints, Dartmouth art history professor and Kauffman scholar, Angela Rosenthal, attests that, "The whole world was Angelica-mad." And Rosenthal — who will be delivering what is sure to be an absorbing presentation on Kauffman Wednesday at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro — is the person to ask.

With a new, handsome 350-page book out — "Angelica Kauffman: Art and Sensibility," which just won this year's Historians of British Art prize in the pre-1800 category — Rosenthal is a fountain of details, personal and professional, about her subject, as well as captivating contextual insights that illuminate the academic and social climate in which Kauffman's star rose so dramatically.

When we spoke earlier this week, I was curious as to how it was possible that a woman born in 1741 could have possibly enjoyed such a successful career — which included painting portraits of kings and queens and establishing the Royal College of Art in London — when 150 years later women still were not being admitted to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Apparently, it pertained more to a serendipitous and somewhat esoteric shift in socio-cultural ideals than a sudden wave of progressive thinking. "This age of sensibility was associated with private, feminine virtues, emotionality and the language of the heart," explained Rosenthal. "Women were considered the experts of these virtues in that time and Kauffman was a skilled artist, a great businesswoman and very sociable. When people sat for her, they also wanted to talk to her."

Born in Switzerland, Kauffman lost her mother at age 16, and thereafter followed her Austrian father, a traveling painter, back to Italy, where she'd already spent much of her childhood studying ancient Greek statuary and masters of the Renaissance. She eventually fell in with the English "grand tour" crowd and, soon after being welcomed into Rome's Academy of St. Luke at age 22, she moved to London, where her reputation as an extraordinarily skilled painter and sublime conversationalist preceded her.

"She had already painted leading Shakespeare interpreter, mega-celebrity of the day, David Garrick," said Rosenthal. "She was known as 'the painter of Garrick.'" In those days, such accolades that linked artists to beloved figures of the stage or throne heralded immediate almost rabid adoration by the teeming masses

As one critic phrased it, Kauffman "burst upon the hemisphere of painting as a luminous wonder," with her widely celebrated romantic aesthetic, whose glowing palette and romantic subject matter seemed to intoxicate the viewing public, including royalty.

Her faithful reinterpretations of classical figures, grouped together using ancient devices of composition, poses and gesture, were set against verdant backgrounds and incorporated symbolic elements such as lyres, lambs and scrolls (the arts, innocence and education, respectively).

Kauffman's soft, peaceful portraits were not simply poetic odes to beauty and nature, they reflected the aesthetics and values of the period in pivotal ways that served to challenge the perception of gender roles and relations.

"Later in the 18th century, we had 'men of feeling,'" expounds Rosenthal. "It was a sentimental culture when the female voice appeared in literature with Samuel Richardson's novel "Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded" and it transformed rough masculinity. Toughness and violence did not reign but, instead, emotional depth."

Even in light of this cultural swell toward the feminine perspective, Kauffman's monumental academic and professional accomplishments remain remarkable today when one considers that it was an age when few women achieved great success or distinction.

Rosenthal finds the evolution and impact of Kauffman's achievements entirely pertinent to societal obstacles and inner messages with which women continue to wrestle today. "If it is held to be somehow something that women don't do, then women themselves hold this mores. It is a mentality of the time that we enforce — not just men who prohibit women from doing what they want to do, but the whole patriarchal culture. Certainly, Kauffman tried to negotiate this, she was trying to please and the ideal of femininity was regarded of the arbiter of this taste."

"German poet Johann Gottfried von Herder called Kauffman 'the most cultivated person in Europe,'" continued Rosenthal. "So if she had intelligent people sitting for portraits, she had to be polished, speak different languages, be charming and flattering without being too submissive. In portraiture you're on equal footing because the sitter is vulnerable in the hands of the artist and that equation was loaded in the 18th century."

Considering the stature of Kauffman's subjects, this dynamic must have been particularly thrilling for her and propelled her career forward at an unprecedented clip, into uncharted territory. "When Queen Charlotte sat for Kauffman," affirmed Rosenthal, "her patronage instantly went up."

Kauffman was at the center of a vibrant intellectual milieu populated not only by wealthy patrons and monarchs, but by fellow female achievers of the day. "She cultivated relationships with a fantastic series of creative women and she made monumental portraits, almost female Temples of the Muses, or Parnassus. Women would sit for Kauffman because she was this cultured woman with a heightened sensibility."

Eighteenth-century English painter James Northcote encapsulated Kauffman's influence more than 200 years ago in a letter he wrote to her dearest friend and colleague, Sir Joshua Reynolds, in which he said Kauffman had become synonymous with successful women in the arts.

Rosenthal considers the lessons in Kauffman's remarkable professional trajectory to be entirely germane to the continuing need for contemporary girls and women to be inspired and challenged. "It's important for 21st-century women to know about women of the past," she said. "It's great to see powerful, creative women who succeeded and contributed fundamentally to the culture."

At last year's bicentennial commemoration of her death, Kauffman's achievements were once again lauded when Austria went all out to honor its favorite female artisan and Rosenthal was clearly moved by the enthusiasm accorded her longtime academic subject.

"At the opening celebration, there were 800 invited guests, plus a documentary film about her and they put her portrait on the Austrian shilling and a new stamp," marveled Rosenthal, who delivered a talk at the event. "She's a national hero there."

In describing the festivities, Rosenthal reflected candidly on her own joy at seeing Kauffman so deservingly lionized. "Sometimes scholarship is a lonely endeavor between you and the work of art, so this was astonishing for me."

Angelica Kauffman's achievements are astonishing to anyone who explores them, as is Rosenthal's wisdom and zeal on the topic. Take advantage of her remarkable expertise by heading to Brooks Library on Wednesday — and bring your daughters.

Online: www.brooks.lib.vt.us

The enthralling appeal of klezmer: Community rejoices in cross-cultural tradition

Sometimes the most delightful discoveries are those made out of context, when one stumbles upon an unexpected goldmine of one sort or another and it ends up usurping the original draw of a place or event. It was just that type of serendipity that led me to one of the most culturally fertile, intoxicatingly festive sounds known to mankind.

I first heard it one December, about 30 years ago, in the unlikeliest of places. My parents and I were strolling through the bough-bedecked halls of a full-on, Fezziwigged, chestnut-roasting, wine-mulling Dickens Christmas Faire, housed within a warehouse along the San Francisco Bay. I, the captive teenager, was finding it all positively soporific.

Trapped in an ersatz English village — comprising painted cobblestone lanes lined with overpriced boutiques selling corsets and bonnets, sweet shoppes offering "real scones" as dry as sheetrock and clusters of actors feigning social interaction by absolutely murdering Cockney rhyming slang — I'd come to feel that the entire experience demanded a suspension of disbelief not even Golden Gate Bridge engineers could have devised.

Rather than sugarplums dancing in my head, the visions I was having were more about going home and lounging on my shag rug with a pair of headphones and a bottle of Orange Crush. Then something completely out of place pleasantly infiltrated my stupor, an exhilarating mix of vibrant gypsy accordion, lilting clarinet, pounding feet and raucous applause, with a bit of puckish tuba thrown in and it was all refreshingly, unquestionably authentic: Klezmer music, wafting above "London's" rooftops ever so persuasively.

Having evolved in Eastern Europe before the Renaissance, klezmer is a Jewish musical tradition that integrates instruments, intonations and folklore from throughout the Diaspora. A derivation from "kley" which means vessel or instruments and "zemer," or song, klezmer is often sung in original Yiddish and, with themes drawing from centuries of perseverance amidst hardship, it is a joyous celebration of the indefatigable spirit and tenacity of Jewish culture.

Upon hearing this aural elixir, I darted toward it at a fast clip, swishing through a sea of elegant hoop skirts in the Victorian taffeta dress Mum had so patiently made for me. Rudely ditching her and Dad, I was on a mission to find the source of the enticingly rowdy sounds that seemed to be emanating from a dimly lit room at the far end of the "village." Though I love a pretty carol chirped sweetly by Dickensian street urchins as much as the next guy, I was ecstatic to have found something a bit more lively and engaging.

My dad was duly drawn in as well, hearing a constellation of his favorite instruments, including fiddle, flute, trombone and guitar, all of which were being deftly wielded by the boisterous members of The Flying Karamozov Brothers, a multitalented collective that, to this day, incorporates klezmer music into various other skills, such as juggling, folk dancing and slapstick skits.

The music was what mesmerized us, though, and it became a centerpiece of the faire for me and Dad thereafter. While Mum indulged in a time-warp amble down expat lane, he and I would sit enrapt by a feisty gaggle of musicians filling the faux 19th-century pub with rousing tunes whose origins lay along a broad geographic swath of rich Jewish culture from Munich to Morocco and Bulgaria to Bosnia.

The incongruity of hearing Jewish klezmer music in an environment that was as steeped in Christmas as plum pudding in brandy was as wonderfully absurdist as the sardonic sense of humor in the Karamozovs' snappy patter and lyrics.

Their inventive songs were cleverly crafted, with astute references to current events that were at once serious and silly. That dual message in klezmer music has intrigued me since and I've wondered how — considering the staggering adversity faced by Jews throughout history — could their lyrical themes be so full of life, merriment and wry wit.

I gained great insight recently when I spoke with consummate local klezmer authority, fiddler and singer-songwriter, Yosl Kurland, who leads The Wholesale Klezmer Band that will be performing at Congregation Beth El's community Hanukkah celebration in Bennington Friday night.

"There's an expression in Yiddish," he explained, "which is: 'To laugh with tears.' I think that for reasons that have to do with both history and religious outlook on life, laughing with tears is built into the culture."

Though many of the songs that The Wholesale Klezmer Band plays are old compositions from past centuries and distant lands, Kurland's own lyrics — often set against vintage melodies — continue this tradition of infusing hardship and sociopolitical strife with a charmingly droll humor, as in a song they performed last year during a fundraiser for an NPR radio station:

Do you want Scott Ritter to tell you the truth?
Learn how Diebold threatens your dear voting booth?
From Bartok to Chartok and all in between,
Reb Yidl give WAMC some more green.

Since its inception in 1982, The Wholesale Klezmer Band has performed everywhere from private functions and community events to Carnegie Hall, during its 100th Anniversary Celebration of Folk Music concert, and Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration.

With the next few weeks taking them to Hanukkah parties, nursing homes and café gigs, not to mention a benefit concert for a synagogue social action program, The Wholesale Klezmer Band shares its cross-cultural musical traditions with a decidedly diverse audience and to extremely positive ends.

No matter what the setting, it's all about honoring the bountiful heritage of Jewish culture.

"We teach people about the old customs," Kurland says. "One example is at weddings when there's the custom of breaking the glass. This is to remember that there are parts of the world still broken and that we must be mindful of that even at times of greatest joy.

"We rejoice at festivals — it doesn't matter if you're going through great troubles, you still have to rejoice and if you look at history, we've been through tremendous troubles and only humor has allowed us to survive."

It is this bittersweet element of levity prevailing despite sorrow that makes the symbolism of klezmer music resonate so powerfully for everyone, regardless of creed. With deep historical roots and an immensely inviting, invigorating sound, it is an ethnically diverse celebration of the human spirit that resonates globally, particularly at this time of year when, as Dickens put it, "Want is keenly felt and Abundance rejoices."

Part of that rejoicing is in the form of dance, which Kurland heartily encourages, stressing that there is no wrong way to move to klezmer music.

"We like to say that it doesn't matter if you're stepping onto your right or left foot, as long as you're not stepping on someone else's foot."

Join The Wholesale Klezmer Band tomorrow night in Bennington at 6 p.m., where everyone is welcome at Congregation Beth El's annual community Hanukkah party, vegetarian potluck and lighting of the menorah candles. And be sure to wear your dancing shoes!

Online

www.cbevermont.org

www.wholesaleklezmerband.com

Annie: annieguyoncommunications.com

Ghostly household hijinks: Ethereal happenings abound in haunted Vermont

For the sake of full disclosure, I'd better get this on the table right up front: I'm a believer — in ghosts, that is. Not that I've ever seen any, you understand. Rather, I implicitly trust the good sense and rational recall of friends and relatives who say they've had up close and personal encounters of the weird kind.

With family rooted entirely in the UK — a place some would say has a corner on the market of all things blood-curdling — my childhood was generously peppered with chilling tales of one sort or another.

The first I ever heard came from my Dad, who grew up around the corner from Borley Rectory, considered by many to be England's most haunted location, with phantom nuns, horse-carriages and ill-fated lovers having been seen on the estate for more than a century. Though my Dad was only sure he'd heard the sounds of hooves when riding past on his bicycle, most of his schoolmates had sworn they'd witnessed all of its oddities.

While England is seemingly crawling with apparitions, its namesake is as well, for this area is steeped in oft-documented yet inexplicable mysteries. As someone who has never witnessed paranormal activity and who finds the notion both appealing and horrifying, it always astounds me that even those who have experienced it many times over can be remarkably matter of fact about it.

Friends who live in a nearby 220-year-old farmhouse are a case in point. They often awoke to find a man sitting motionless at the end of the bed, who then evaporates while turning towards them. Once they heard sounds of pots and pans crashing in the kitchen as if someone were preparing a 10-course meal, but, upon investigation, every wok and stockpot was still in its place and no one was there. And a door in the guest room has been known to open and close of its own accord.

Though they seem wholly unflustered by these creepy events, I'm fairly certain I'd be running to the nearest Realtor declaring it's time to sell and find a shiny new condo in a high-rise somewhere.

This flagrant cowardice is what kept me from heading over to Manchester's pre-eminently elegant—and allegedly haunted — resort hotel, the Equinox, to interview General Manager Courtney Lowe in person, as any self-respecting writer would. I'd heard about various preternatural incidents that have taken place at the Equinox since its founding in 1769 and, well, uh, my schedule was a little tight, so I ended up having to talk to him by phone, drat it.

According to Lowe, the hotel's housekeepers, in particular, are made aware of a presence that seems to enjoy interfering with their work in mischievous ways.

"There's a suite with floor-to-ceiling curtains which get tied up in a knot," he explained. "The housekeepers will untie them, go out of room and come back a few minutes later to find them tied again."

Lowe attests that there's a long list of peculiar goings-on, including vacuum cleaners turning on by themselves as well as ephemeral characters seen by guests. "Years ago, a corporate meeting planner looked out on the landing outside his door when he heard a noise and saw a ghostly looking figure standing there."

According to Lowe, because the hotel has been in existence for so long there are decades of testimony by employees and guests who couldn't have known each other, but whose observations have been identical, including accounts of otherworldly children running up and down one particular hallway.

I've also read about beds that have just been made up will be discovered moments later having been stripped of their linens and that a long-locked, uninhabited room has sometimes been found to have a tower of furnishings and other objects piled up in the center of the floor.

One of the most eloquent and encyclopedic resources for such compelling nuggets from this region's rich history of hauntings is Vermont native, Joe Citro, author of seven books on the countless intriguing, if not patently sepulchral, occurrences that have been taking place in New England for centuries.

Each of his publications — including "Ghosts, Ghouls and Unsolved Mysteries," "Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors" and "Green Mountains, Dark Tales" — offer a comprehensive selection of informative narratives documenting everything from big-band music emanating from a nonexistent Victrola to smells of cooking wafting through an old office building whose kitchen had long since been removed.

My favorite Citro collection is "The Vermont Ghost Guide," 100 pages of local legends in a handy pocket-sized format and perfect for keeping in one's glove box — if one has the courage to actually stop at the sites of his mesmerizing tales, that is. Citro's unofficial designation as the state's resident oddity historian is well-earned, for he has been recording and recounting these compelling reports for two decades and it all started with an eerie story told by his dad.

"My father was likely to tell stories about local events," Citro said. "And my earliest experience was when he told me about the Bowman House in Cuttingsville."

The Bowman House is said to be haunted by Mrs. Bowman, whose untimely death followed the demise of both her children. Mr. Bowman's profound sorrow is manifest today in the form of a massive mausoleum he built across from the family home, replete with a life-size statue of himself grieving, hat and wreath in hand.

"That's the first story that captured my attention," Citro said. "My father knew a lot of local lore and then I would get the real scoop."

The Vermont Guide has enough real scoops to keep readers busy for many a Hallows' Eve, with descriptions that are frightening and fascinating, and alter our view of many a landmark.

Tranquil Windsor, for instance, is the site of one of the most astounding phenomena I've ever come across. In 1955, a family was forced to move out of its home when water began mysteriously filling cupboards, closets and chairs throughout the house. It even rained inside at one point and a bowl of grapes filled up with water while being carried from one room to the next. Professionals in every field were consulted, from plumbers to parapsychologists, but the puzzle was never solved and within a month it was over. The family's name? Waterman.

The stories are riveting and diverse: In Bellows Falls, the spirits of native Abenakis are said to roam along the riverbanks on which a paper mill now sits, with legs submerged in the floorboards; phantom canoes have been seen floating across the water at Sumner's Falls in Hartland; Shaftsbury Cemetery is graced by the specter of one Gardner Barton who lingers near the family tombstones; and at Wilmington's White House Inn, the ghost of Clara Brown, wife of the inn's builder, is said to speak to guests who share her name. These are but a few examples of hundreds of unearthly happenings that color Vermont's cultural history.

Along with a Citro-guided terrifying tour of Vermont, you can take in a bit of spine-chilling outdoor theater written by the author himself as well. The Haunted Forest takes place on the grounds of the Catamount Family Center in Wilmington this Friday and Saturday and, from the sounds of it, your ghoulish goblet will runneth over.

As for my own fear of foreboding, I joked with my beau that maybe we ought to actually stay at the Equinox sometime so I can do some serious journalistic research along the lines of popular TV shows like "Most Haunted" or "Ghost Hunters," wherein authorities and amateurs alike prowl around bedecked with infrared cameras, motion sensors and electromagnetic field detectors. Since the Equinox is so beautiful and its ethereal events more curious than creepy, gosh, I might just do it. Next year.

Online: www.thehauntedforest.org

www9.addr.com/~jacitro

www.equinoxresort.com

Annie:  annieguyoncommunications.com

Giving voice to what we believe: NPR producer explores universal notion

On the first day of fifth grade, circa 1972, my classmates and I were instructed to write a one-page essay on what we believed in — no mean feat for a 10-year-old who spent most of the time fretting that her nose was too elfin or with said protuberance buried in Enid Blyton books or Betty and Veronica comics.

Looking back on where my priorities lay at that age, my essay was probably a rambling jumble of unfinished thoughts about how I believed that kids should not leave homework until the last minute, that older sisters should not bully younger sisters and that rice pudding was really gross. In other words, it was likely a whingy roster of average pre-adolescent obsessions about foibles, siblings and general daily trials such as unappetizing dishes at dinnertime.

Lucky for me, that myopia was soon ripped open by a trio of groovy, newbie teachers who, in the "combined classroom" setting popular in those days, did their darndest to get about 60 kids to reconsider their world from new and, to use the lexicon of the day, radical angles.

There was Mr. Berry, who addressed us as if we, too, were 30-ish political activists who cared deeply about things like the Vietnam war, littering and Jungian psychology; Mr. Lindbergh who, with dulcet tones and gentle manner, ended each day reading aloud to us from books such as "Where the Red Fern Grows" or "Travels With Charley;" and Ms. Ayling who taught us about Bella Abzug, the women's' rights movement and how the birth control pill heralded a social revolution.

And yet it wasn't only school that kept me steeped in thought-provoking ideas and sensibilities. With working-class parents who recalled the terror of buzz bombs during WWII, an atheist grandmother who regularly disparaged Nixon, my older sister canvassing for the McGovern-Shriver campaign after school every day and perpetual familial fears that my brother might be drafted, I already had some fairly strong opinions about the world. It was just that no one had ever asked for them.

Plenty of folks go through life keeping their beliefs largely to themselves, for one reason or another, although given the right opportunity even the quietest voices can rise and be heard.

"This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women," a collection of 80 absorbing essays based on the NPR show of the same name, gives voice to private citizens and public figures. Based on eminent journalist Edward R. Murrow's venerated 1950s-era "This I Believe" radio show, the book contains views from present day luminaries such as Gloria Steinem, Colin Powell and Eve Ensler, as well as those who were in Murrow's original broadcasts, including Helen Keller, Albert Einstein and Oscar Hammerstein.

Some are simple and moving, others complex and bold, but all are fearless, forthright and timeless.

A few entries paint social observations with a broad philosophical brush, such as Mr. Hammerstein, who declared: "I am a man who believes he is happy. What makes it unusual is that a man who is happy seldom tells anyone. The unhappy man is more communicative. He is eager to recite what is wrong with the world, and he seems to have a talent for gathering a large audience. It is a modern tragedy that despair has so many spokesmen, and hope so few."

Likewise, the words of Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan, who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, brim with an egalitarian celebration of humanity: "I believe in the brotherhood and equality of man. I recognize no division or privilege based on race, color, family or wealth. The only badge of honor and nobility that I recognize is the purity and righteousness of a man's life."

At 7 p.m. Saturday, Jay Allison, who co-edited the book and co-produces the radio show with fellow NPR reporter Dan Gediman, will speak at Northshire Books along with Casey Murrow, the son of Edward R. Murrow.

With the immense popularity of the radio shows and the book, the breadth of their contributors and the journalistic brilliance of the founder himself, "This I Believe" is an ever-pertinent source of insight and connection in which a core impulse of human nature is eloquently and mightily manifest.

Edward R. Murrow once said, "The newest computer can merely compound, at speed, the oldest problem in the relations between human beings, and in the end the communicator will be confronted with the old problem, of what to say and how to say it."

Respectfully expanding upon Mr. Murrow's discerning observation, Allison and Gediman also created "This I Believe," the Web site and nonprofit organization, "to promote the free and respectful exchange of ideas." Giving anyone and everyone an opportunity to express his or her personal philosophies via an online database of personal essays from around the globe, the site invites regular folks like you and me to tell the world what we believe.

A remarkably intimate peek into the achievements, hardships, regrets and revelations of people from more than 70 countries, the site is an expansive example of the computer at its best, making the world seem smaller by sewing the experience of humanity together across the ether.

"This I Believe" asks all of us to look within and express our innermost credos, though it's not the first such publication to do so. Way back in 1941, a book called "Vermont Is Where You Find It" by Keith Warren Jennison asked the same thing, in so many words. Pairing stark portraits of Vermonters with wry questions and observations, one page asks "What do you know today … for sure?"

Go to the "This I Believe" Web site and you'll see just what 241 fellow Vermonters know for sure. They believe in a great many things, including the power of goodness, of laughter and of working together. They believe that everyday life is filled with profound moments, that creatures should not suffer because of human greed and that toddlers can be our teachers. They believe in the right to dignity, in giving oneself the gift of time and in hope. One woman even believes in soil and expounds upon her conviction as passionately and powerfully as her online kin.

The sum of these varied versions of "This I Believe" — the book, the old and new radio show and now this visionary database of personal principles — is a wealth of wisdom and compassion that serves to edify, inspire and galvanize us all.

It is particularly striking to note how many of the essays from the original show are germane to our present-day socio-political climate. Pearl S. Buck, who recorded her thoughts for Murrow's show in 1951, seems to have presaged the current state of international affairs.

"I believe that the normal human heart is born good. That is, it's born sensitive and feeling, eager to be approved and to approve, hungry for simple happiness and the chance to live. It neither wishes to be killed, nor to kill. If through circumstances, it is overcome by evil, it never becomes entirely evil. There remain in it elements of good, however recessive, which continue to hold the possibility of restoration."

One of the "This I Believe" online entries, from a man in Vermont, decisively synopsizes Murrow, Allison and Gediman's collective motivation: He believes there is a person inside all of us who needs to be heard.

Say what you have to say on the "This I Believe" Web site and head to Northshire Books for what is sure to be an enthralling evening built around one of the airwaves' most consistently meaningful shows.

Online: www.thisibelieve.org

www.northshire.com

Native depth and tenacity of spirit: Lecture on Abenaki explores proud heritage

Funny how objects from every day life can play different roles and command shifting levels of esteem, over time. Take the basic household laundry basket, for instance.

My family had two: one a gaudy red plastic number from Woolworth's, which I'd claim for various childhood games like rowing across the living room floor or being a lion at the zoo.

The other basket — a handsome, oblong beauty made of wide, golden slats that had the sheen of age even back then — was off limits to us kids.

Without Mum having to say a word, I got the message early on to not even consider using it as a plaything, and just as I was growing out of such folly, somewhere around the age of 8, I found out exactly why it was held in such high regard and always stored on a shelf out of my reach. It had been made by an Indian.

"A real Indian," I remember thinking ("Native American" not having yet entered the lexicon).

According to my Auntie Pat — my Mum's sister who immigrated to the United States after marrying a GI from Maine — the basket maker's name was Joe Knockwood and he lived alone just outside of Kingfield.

Auntie Pat's new mother-in-law had commissioned Knockwood to make two baskets, one for each of the English sisters who were just starting out their lives as married women in the States.

Over the years I coveted Mum's from afar, so ever since she passed away and it became mine, I've cherished it as she did; it serves as my 8-year-old daughter's hamper now, and she too seems to have the same sense of respect for it that I did at her age.

Serendipitously, I recently found an expert right here in Vermont who shed further light on my prized basket.

According to Jeanne Brink, a direct descendant of the native inhabitants of New England known as the Abenaki, it's very likely that it is made of ash. Her people have been making baskets from the wood of that tree for centuries, and my description of its warm hue and distinctive construction is congruous with the basketry she knows so incredibly well.

With a grandmother and great aunts who were full-blooded Abenaki, Brink grew up observing the making of these gorgeous baskets throughout her childhood. As if I needed any further assurance of her authority in the matter, Brink is herself a master basket maker, having studied the art at the Vermont Folklife Center and now training her own eager apprentices.

Honoring this familial impetus to share the heritage and lessons of her ancestors, Brink also gives lectures about Abenaki history and culture throughout the region. She will be in Springfield on Sept. 4 at 2 p.m. at the Nolin-Murray Center, as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute's top-notch lecture series.

The Abenaki were named for an Algonquin word meaning "people of the dawn," in reference to the easterly region they occupied. There are several factions of Abenaki, each with distinct customs and languages, and it is the Western Abenaki from whom Brink descended.

Also known as the "Sokoki" or "people who are separated," the Abenaki of Vermont and New Hampshire lived in small enclaves of extended families that relocated according to the seasons and their food source, horticulture, hunting and fishing. Their main crops were beans, squash and corn. Homes were typically domed wigwams covered in bark and/or buffalo hide.

The Abenaki people suffered the scourges of pestilence and war, the latter in the form of internal strife cause by competition for the growing French fur trade and attempts by the Mohawk to push their territory eastward, followed by battles between the English and the French over long-held Abenaki land.

The Sokoki attempted to reclaim sections of their homeland throughout the 19th century, but to no avail. The Abenaki have never entered into a treaty with the U.S. government, leaving them fundamentally on their own to uphold a societal presence — politically, culturally and in the context of education.

Today, the Abenaki still reside throughout New England, with descendants such as Brink striving to perpetuate their beautiful heritage through cultural programs, oral history recordings and events, dance demonstrations and powwows.

Speaking with Brink recently, I was struck by the passion in her voice as she recalled the elders she knew as a child.

"My grandmother lived with us on and off, and we would take her to see her brother and sister who lived on Lake Champlain," Brink explained. "They made a living selling baskets, and my great uncle also made toy birch bark canoes."

The family's work ethic clearly made an impression, which informs her own commitment to learning the skills of the Abenaki, or "u-ban´-akee," as her grandmother pronounced it, revealing an old influence of French-Canadian dialect.

"They were never idle, they were always making something. You didn't just sit and chat with company."

She is equally proud of ancestors she never met, particularly her great-grandfather, who passed away in 1932.

"He made 18-foot birchbark canoes and made and repaired more than 500 pairs of ash and sinew snowshoes," she enthused. "He came from Canada on a lumber barge in early 1890s. In the spring and summer, he'd sell baskets that the women and children made and then go back north in the winter to hunt and trap."

Brink brings various "material culture" items to her lectures to illustrate the skills, diligence and creativity of her people, as well as the expertise that she herself has cultivated throughout her life, to perpetuate their pragmatic wisdom and singular aesthetic.

On Tuesday, she will bring along her grandmother's and great aunts' baskets and a pair of snowshoes that her great-grandfather made in 1903. She will teach attendees a bit of her great-grandfather's native language and discuss the philosophical aspects of Abenaki culture that she considers most vital and germane to our own society today.

As with all Native Americans, the Abenaki venerate their elders and stress the importance of passing traditions and rituals on to children. Brink has taught her own children and grandchildren about their lush ancestral ways of life and brings that same custom of storytelling to her speaking engagements.

Occasionally, one can also catch a demonstration by the W'Abenaki Dancers, a dynamic group of performers coordinated by Brink, who recreate riveting ceremonial and social dances for the public.

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to attend such an event at the Rockingham Meeting House and it brought the depth, vibrancy and power of Abenaki culture to life.

With such personal immersion and authenticity of spirit — not to mention profound creative achievement — Brink's talk on Tuesday is sure to do the same.

For more information, call 885-8390.

Honoring heritage and spirit: Stirring festival at new Asian Cultural Center

Sure, county fairs are fun but how many Americans pay respects to their ancestors, become immersed in the arts of their heritage and learn some cool mythology while taking out plastic ducks in the shooting gallery or wolfing down pink popcorn?

Not many.

Though my childhood friends and I liked rickety Ferris wheels and fried dough as much as the next guy, the most highly-anticipated fête in our neighborhood each summer did not involve carousels, cotton candy, Tilt-A-Whirls or fireworks. No, it was a far more esoteric roster of attractions that had us counting down the days right about this time every year: things like fierce taiko drumming, mesmerizing, fan-waving, kimono-clad dancers, scrumptious yakitori skewers, sweet azuki bean candy and games such as scooping up a floating dragon out of a wooden tub of water before your rice paper ladle dissolved.

It was the Obon Festival, a wonderfully convivial, bustling weekend abundant with traditional Japanese music, dancing, games, martial arts and cultural activities held every August on the grounds of the Buddhist Temple where my best friend Donna Ujita and her family were active members.

Being raised in a completely non-spiritual, ethnically myopic household by socially circumspect and, to be frank, desperately unexotic British people, I soaked up every element of the Obon Festival like the WASP sponge that I was.

From the glowing lanterns, ancient fencing demonstrations and solemn tea ceremonies to ikebana flower arranging workshops, judo bouts and bonsai displays — patiently nurtured by expert sages as diminutive and sinewy as their centenarian creations — the Obon was the grand finale of summer and it was only when I moved away that I realized how lucky I'd been to have such rich experiences so early on.

This exposure to the spectacular breadth and beauty of Japanese culture was what led me to Japan years later and it was there that I learned of its many other festivals or "matsuri", as they're called, and the specific occasions, traditions or people they celebrate.

While the Obon seeks to soothe spirits of the dead, who are said to be visiting during that time, there's also Kyoto's Gion Matsuri, which originally sought to appease the gods of fire, earthquake and pestilence, the Shogatsu Matsuri commemorating the New Year, the Hina Matsuri honoring women and girls.

Thanks to two visionary Windham County residents, we have the opportunity to experience a matsuri first-hand at the Asian Cultural Center of Vermont, this Sunday from 1pm to 4pm.

Less than a year after opening the center, Executive Director, Adam Silver and his wife, Artistic Director, Cai Xi Silver, are holding their first annual Tanabata Festival in the Center's fine arts gallery at 814 Western Avenue in Brattleboro.

Also known as The Star Festival, the Tanabata originated with a 2,000-year old Chinese story about two celestial beings, Orihime, a weaver princess and a cow herder prince, Hikoboshi, who spent so much time frolicking about and shirking their duties that the king punished them both by putting them on opposite sides of the Amanogawa River (aka Milky Way). These stars, known to us as Vega and Altair, were allowed to meet only once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, which by our calendar is this weekend, and the festival celebrates their annual togetherness.

The Tanabata, which seeks to promote the improvement of skills, will feature vibrant streamers, songs and foods and Japanese experts will offer lessons in origami folding and calligraphy, using rice paper, ink and brushes, as well as a haiku poetry workshop and reading.

The tale of the Tanabata will also be told, incorporating the tradition of writing down one's wishes for the coming year in the form of poetry on small pieces of paper called "tanzaku" and hanging them from tree branches in the garden behind the gallery.

Concurrently with the Festival, a rare exhibit of extraordinarily moving and meticulously crafted "paintings" will be on display, made in 1945 by children who miraculously survived when the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima.

After the blast, a teacher from the Hiroshima Girls High School, Ataki-san, found that only about 50 of his 250 former students were still alive and he established a makeshift school in a tent in order to restore some semblance of normalcy for them.

"He looked for ways to help these young women somehow resume their lives as they recuperated", said Executive Director, Silver, during a recent conversation. "Some couldn't use their arms at first but over months and years the paintings were developed using a traditional method called "kir-i", which involves laying down tiny strips of fabric with rice glue and creating these small, exquisite paintings."

The source of their medium is as poignant as the girls' tenacity itself: they pulled these small fragments of material from the ashes and rubble of Hiroshima.

"Ataki-san told the girls to create a picture that reminded them of the beauty of where they come from", Silver explained. "Some did portraits of women they'd known but the majority are pictures of places they remembered."

The journey of these paintings to New England is compelling as well. Northampton resident, Phyllis Rodin, a renowned peace-activist now in her 90's, was a psychiatric nurse in Hiroshima during the 1960's and helped many of the young women who'd been students of Ataki-san with the post-traumatic stress that still affected them decades after the devastation.

According to Silver, Rodin remembers that some of her patients had been maimed and they told her the story of how the paintings allowed them to begin healing emotionally. In thanks for her work with many of the 150,000 "hibakusha" — explosion-affected people — Ataki-san and fellow citizens of Hiroshima presented Rodin with 19 of these remarkable artistic expressions of post-war anguish and hope, and the Asian Cultural Center will have them on display through the end of the month.

Rodin herself will also be present at tomorrow's reception, which goes from 4:30p.m. to 8:30p.m., so it's a great opportunity to meet someone who was directly involved in Hiroshima's process of recovery and to see the fruits of her patients' mettle as they turned tragedy into beauty. The gallery is also open daily from Noon to 6pm and by appointment by calling 579.9088.

During the reception, Japanese bamboo flute master, Elizabeth Reian Bennett — the first woman to be certified in Japan as a Shakuhachi master — will perform at 7pm. One of the pieces she'll be performing is called Nesting Cranes, a fitting composition based on the symbol of post-atom bomb healing.

We're very fortunate to have our own Asian Cultural Center here in southern Vermont, so do try to stop in for any or all of these events, which are free and open to all ages, and consider becoming a Friend of the Center by making a donation as well. Domo arigato!

Every story needs telling: Oral history gives voice to our rich past

Who knew a bit of adolescent mischief would become a treasured record of aural ancestry contained on one dusty old cassette tape? Not me, that’s for sure.

I was in my early teens and in England with my family visiting a colorful quartet of great aunties, all in their 80s and about as lively and irreverent as anyone I'd ever met older than 14. There was Auntie Hetty, Auntie Minnie and Aunt Polly, but one we usually stayed with was Auntie Maude who was as sharp as a tack and, despite having lived a life laced with adversity, as cheery as a kid in a sweetshop.

Her bright disposition was especially remarkable to me because she was living amid what I perceived to be inordinately harsh privation: in a tiny cottage with no hot water, no bathtub or shower, no fridge (kept her milk bottles in a bucket of cool water in the shade), only two channels on her black-and-white telly and no phone.

It didn't seem to bother Auntie Maude, though, for she always seemed content. My memories of her center on the endless production and consumption of tea so stout you could stand a spoon in it, a high-emission cigarette perpetually poised between knobby fingers and a steady stream of affable, wry socio-political commentary, along with peeks into her past.

This latter pastime was what inspired me, one afternoon, to pop a blank cassette into my portable tape player. I'd brought it on the trip, along with the latest from Queen, Rod Stewart and Led Zeppelin, among others, to break the monotony of what I remember as excruciatingly tedious summer days in rural England.

Seeing as my older siblings had buggered off, probably to the pub for a shandy, leaving me with nothing better to do, I surreptitiously pressed "Record" on the recorder and slid it through the doorway just as they began bustling around getting the tea ready.

What my dastardly surveillance yielded was a muffled but entertaining wall of chatter, delivered in a singularly East Anglian volley of lyrical inflections and guttural "r"s and punctuated by the occasional "Well, I nevvah!" "Oh I say!" and "Like some tuyh, duhyuh?"

Later, sitting on the back stoop with my big black headphones on and replaying this jumble of familial conviviality, I was enrapt. Having an audible document of my female elders — women who had survived wars, abuse, loss and abject poverty, and who'd been maids, factory workers, cooks and suffragettes — was a connection to my past more palpable than all the Cadbury's in London.

That illicit recording was what sparked an impulse to start documenting my family history and I've been interviewing relatives ever since, amassing a collection of factoids, comical moments, historical data and all-too many sorrowful tales as well.

This has mostly been in the form of hastily scribbled notes, however, since no relative has ever granted me permission to tape them and at this point I have several files fat with crumpled bits of paper.

As have so many immigrants, I'm attempting to put this family lore into a book, though it's a daunting notion in several ways. When yet another aunt bestowed hundreds of family photos and various mementos upon me after tearily announcing that, since I was as sentimental as she was, I was being duly appointed the next family historian, it came with a weighty, albeit self-imposed, imperative to do right by her.

I've always been enthralled by my roots — from the minutiae of daily existence to the chronology of our post-war mass exodus to America — and all those tatty scraps of paper serve to remind me that a lot of hard work, happy times and heartache preceded the likes of me.

Though I'd figured this fixation on the past just meant I miss Mother England and like to write, I was recently informed that I am, as a matter of fact, an ethnographer; well, an amateur one, but an ethnographer nevertheless.

The person who informed me of this is Gregory Sharrow, director of education and folklorist at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, with whom I spoke recently about his coming talk on recording oral histories. I mentioned how the book project grew from a tendency to pelt elderly relatives with questions about their lives. I retold a favorite account, about my great-grandfather who used to keep bees in the wall of his one-room home and who subsisted on a single oaty flapjack a day, which he would procure from a local vendor for a farthing.

According to Sharrow, this is ethnographically rich information, in story form with characters and visual details and it's what oral history is all about. For nearly 20 years, Sharrow has been immersed in this holistic, hands-on approach to socio-cultural anthropology, conducting field work that involves finding Vermont residents who are willing to talk and recording their recollections and observations.

With a Ph.D in folklore from the University of Pennsylvania, he trains educators and the public in this vital form of historical research and documentation. On June 12, he'll be doing a presentation on the subject at 7 p.m. at Hildene in Manchester and the evening will include various excerpts from his extensive library of recordings, such as farmers telling charming anecdotes about making hard cider or sobering truths from life during the Great Depression, all honoring extraordinary stories of ordinary people, simply through listening.

"I want to motivate people to explore the details of everyday life because things that are the most fundamental are also often the least visible in historical research since they're taken for granted," he explains.

Hosted by the Vermont Humanities Council, the event is an opportunity for all of us to learn how to delve deeply into the history of our own family as well as that of our community.

"Oral history is about discovery and not just filling in the blanks," Sharrow says. "It's how the world looks from someone else's point of view, distinct from conventional perspectives of history."

It's also not only about the past, he points out. "During our Summer Institute program, on day one I send people out to places like a saw mill, a tattoo parlor or a general store and they come back so excited about what they learned by just talking to people."

The Folklife Center doesn't only focus on Vermont's history. Sharrow and his colleagues also record the stories of refugees who have come here from places such as Bosnia, Tibet, the Sudan and Laos, entering their stories into the center's archives and encouraging the public to come in and soak up the diverse strata of experience and heritage that comprise our communities.

The Vermont Folklife Center has just relocated to spacious new digs in downtown Middlebury and — with its multimedia exhibits, workshops and research tools as well as a massive collection of recordings — it's a cultural goldmine that enlightens and inspires.

At one point, Sharrow asked if I'd do a talk about my research methodology as I complete my book. That would be pen, persistence and a faithful notepad. With my Mum's cousin about to arrive from across the pond for his annual visit, all three are at the ready.

Grab your own implements of interviewing because, as the song sort of goes, every pancake tells a story — especially in this state.

For information: Marion La Torella, 362-1277; www.vermontfolklifecenter.org or www.vermonthumanities.org.