THE GREENING OF VERMONT
Eisen, Jonathan
the Maronite Catholic Rite--thus settling the community's worries about their sacramental future. Throughout their three decades, Feeney had been the community's only priest, and as he aged...
...They split from the larger group and took up residence in another building on the St...
...Nature here is often cruel and technology is gaining strong footholds on the 'heels of the transformation of this state from agrarian-pastoral to industrial-suburban...
...Armed to the teeth against the ferocious deer, they peer from behind their wheels, feeling the rigors of the sport of the hunt...
...Benedict community unsettled for months, maybe even years...
...The farms are drying up as fast as you can whistle Old Macdonald, and the .people are hurting...
...Industrialism is being portrayed as the solution to the plight of Vermont's un- and under-employed...
...Meanwhile the deer and the mountain slopes are all that stand between here and catastrophe...
...A lot of them are young people from big cities...
...Still, things are looking up for the skiing industry as the winter has come unseasonably early this year...
...It :brings in jobs...
...Benedict Center refused to make that 1974 profession of faith, holding that their orthodoxy to Catholic teaching made even the most perfunctory gestures unnecessary and humiliating...
...one chapter remains to be written...
...Another complication in the way of a full happy ending is litigation pending over the property...
...Of course, if industrialism really were the answer, New Jersey should be sailing along...
...And business is what's good for Vermont...
...JOHN DEEDY 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 The Greening Of Vermont All day long the hunters have been driving up and down my road...
...Nearly all the politicians in the recent election were speaking of bringing in industry to "solve" the state's unemployment problems...
...That seems to have gone the way of the windmill, though there are a few hardy souls in these parts who still hold out for the old ways...
...Life is precarious for the deer...
...Either or both of these issues could keep the St...
...Right in there with Michigan...
...New ideas have a hard time in Vermont...
...Or sometimes themselves...
...These other neighbors allegedly hunt whenever the spirit moves them...
...Like the predators they are, the men travel in packs, packing their guns, gunning their cars, carrying their six packs by the armload...
...He was with two friends and two boys...
...Since there' are quite a few of them and no shortage of spirits, the woods are fairly well depleted of deer...
...But Vermont is tied into it now...
...It was a near-traumatic concern for a group so fundamentalist, and undoubtedly it helped influence the reconciliation decision...
...The rest either hunt the deer or each other...
...If the hunters like the place enough, it is hoped they will return shortly to test their mettle on the slopes, meantime bringing in still more money...
...Nearly 200,000 of them...
...people seem to feel that knocking off the deer will make life less precarious for them...
...But the story isn't quite closed...
...And bear, too, for that matter...
...It was snowing...
...My neighbor was out this morning, the second day of the "season," before dawn...
...Feeney placed ownership of the 146 acres and buildings in the names of all members of the community, and there are those who would carve up the property now...
...Eighteen members of St...
...The hunters are all here, however...
...Occasionally there will be a dead deer tied to the hood of the vehicle in the traditional manner, but mostly not...
...They even elected a Republican Governor because, as everyone knows, the Republicans are good for business...
...Everyone knows that industry exists to make jobs for the people...
...But with the infinitely knottier problems involving Rome and Chancery worked out, .most Feeney watchers are optimistic that the issues of member-unity and propertyownership can be resolved too...
...Throughout their three decades, Feeney had been the community's only priest, and as he aged concern grew stronger about being left priestless...
...He didn't "get" anything and he was disappointed...
...And the result is that the swings of the economy are more readily felt now that cash-flow consciousness has taken root in the collective mind of a people once proud of their self-sufficiency and independence from the rest of the country and the vagaries of the national economic scene...
...He looked grizzled as most of the men do around this time of year, letting their facial hair grow, though heaven forfend, not anything else that might let them be regarded as "hippies...
...As with the rest of the country, ~he prevailing thought about matters of relative value comes to final rest at the doorstep of the dollar...
...It will just take time, they say, and more tact...
...Benedict property: There has been little contact between the two groups since, apart from the sharing of Feeney's priestly ministry and the kitchen facilities...
...They complained of other of my neighbors' lack of observance of the dates of the hunting season...
...A few chipmunk and skunk amble by now and then, and this year there seemed to be more than the usual number of Canadian geese honking south, but the deer seem in short supply, despite the glowing statistics by the government dopartments responsible for issuing them...
...They will bring nearly $20 million into Vermont this fall and that is considered important especially in light of the declining fortunes of other "industries"--like skiing...
...Never mind good logic...
...After all, Vermont has the highest suicide rate in the country, ffONATHAN EISEN Commonweal: 7...
Vol. 104 • January 1977 • No. 1
