Vermont's Virtues

I like Vermont because it is quiet, because you have a population that is solid and not driven mad by the American mania - that mania which considers a town of four thousand twice as good as a town of two thousand, or a city of one hundred thousand, fifty times as good as a town of two thousand. Following that reasoning, one would get the charming paradox that Chicago would be ten times better than the entire state of Vermont, but I have been to Chicago, and have not found it so. - Sinclair Lewis, 1929

[ The views expressed above certainly capture my ideas about Vermont, I had the opportunity to settle down in a number of states, even countries. I chose Vermont since it offers the best reasonable mix of those qualities which I find attractive about other places. I understand that, from a population and living location perspective, Vermont is still the most rural state in the United States. I have never regretted this choice, either for my family or for myself.]

There is a poem by E. F. Johnson which expresses how I feel about Vermont.:

"No Vermonters in Heaven"

I dreamed that I went to the City of Gold,

To Heaven, resplendent and fair,

and after I entered that beautiful fold,

By one in authority there I was told

That not one Vermonter was there.

"Impossible", said I. "A host from my town

Have sought this delectable place,

And each must be here with a harp and a crown,

A conqueror's palm and clean linen gown

Received through merited grace."

The Angel replied: "All Vermonters come here

When first they depart from the earth,

But after a day or a month or a year

They restless and lonesome and homesick appear

And sigh for the land of their birth"

"They tell of its many and beautiful hills

Where forest majestic appear;

Its rivers and lakes and its streams of water and its rills

Where nature the purest of water distills,

And they soon get dissatisfied here."

"They tell of ravines, wild , secluded and deep

Of clover-decked landscapes serene,

Of towering mountains, imposing and steep

Adown which the torrents exultingly leap

Through forests perennially green."

We give the the best that the Kingdom provides,

They have everything here that they want;

But not a Vermonter in Heaven abides,

A very short time period here he resides,

The hikes his way back to Vermont."

by E. F. Johnson