Second Son: Growing Up in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom

By Barry Dimick

Dad looked down at us and spoke slowly. "I'm sorry to be late, but something terrible has happened. It's about your mother."

***

Barry grows up in the long shadows cast by his older brother and Vermont's Green Mountains. He must deal with his father and the horrible message he delivers. Barry lets off steam on ball fields and basketball courts, h

• Language: English
• Publisher: Onion River Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781949066579

Barry Dimick

Barry grew up in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Following his Vietnam service, he completed his Bachelor of Science Degree at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. He is a life member of the American Legion, Sorrell-Woodward Post 1623. After a career in banking, he and his wife, Melody, moved to Central Florida. They enjoy playing pinochle with their son and his wife, playing pickleball, and traveling home to Vermont and New York in the summer. Barry is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the Florida Writers Association (FWA), and a writers group called Villa Writers. His other memberships include the Daytona Writers Guild, the Florida Authors and Publishers Association, and the Florida State Poets Association. Barry's short stories, "Letting Go," "Vermont," and "Piece-by-Piece" were published in FWA Collections. Barry can be reached at www.BarryAndrewDimick.com.

Book preview

~ 1 ~

THE SWITCH

Before my world turned upside down, Grammy Dimick took care of Jon and me until noon or so on summer weekdays while our parents worked. When Dad delivered us to his parents’ farmhouse bright and early, around 7:15 a.m., she greeted us with a smile and Good morning, boys. After dropping us off, Dad drove from Walden, back to the US Post Office in East Hardwick, Vermont, to sort mail and embark on his thirty-five-mile, half-day rural free delivery (RFD) route.

Grammy stood five feet tall and looked huge to me. She was stout and strong, and kept her long black hair bundled on top of her head. And she didn’t bother to clip her dozen or so curly chin whiskers. After Grammy ushered us into the house, we seldom sat down—unless, that is, she offered us a slice of toast. Whenever she offered, I licked my lips and said, Yes, please. I loved her homemade bread.

Jon and I were active boys. We played outside most of the time. I loved climbing into the Duchess apple trees on the knoll across the gravel road from the house where Grampa Dimick’s cows often grazed. Grammy always said, Duchess apples make the best apple pies. I loved the smell of her apple pies.

Our days at Grammy’s were often spent exploring.

Sometimes we ventured into the dale, behind the house and barn, to look for brook trout under the small plank bridge. Alders lined the brook on both sides all the way across the field to the road, except where the bridge crossed the brook.

Since brook trout are exceptionally skittish, we’d lie down on the thick planks and stay still, with our heads hanging over the side. It didn’t take long for trout to appear, and we’d watch them skitter around the stony bottom of the small pool on the lower side of the bridge. Sometimes Jon would say, Watch this, and he’d surprise them by dropping a twig or small stone in the water. Other times, he’d jump up and down on the bridge several times, causing vibrations and ripples so we could see them shoot like little black darts in all directions.

At the top of the long, steep, grassy hill on the far side of the brook, a narrow trail into the maple, pine, and spruce forest beckoned. We left the mild aroma of mature grass behind as we entered the woods on a trail barely wide enough for a small tractor. Jon always reminded me, Watch for tracks and droppings.

As Jon and I explored both sides of the trail from the ground and from tree limbs, we sometimes spooked partridges. They always saw us first and surprised us with thumping wings louder than a bass drumroll. Partridges flew straight up four or five feet and then sideways and out of view. We heard them hit foliage. The noise sounded as if someone had thrown them through the boughs.

When the weather was too bad for outside play, and Grammy tired of our running around the small house playing games or wrestling, she appeared with a thick, department-store catalogue in each hand. Here you go, boys.

That calmed us down in no time flat. We knew what came next.

One for each of you. Now sit on the floor and fold every one of those pages the way I showed you. I want it quiet while you do it. No roughhousing. The rain should stop by the time you’re done.

The process bored us, but we knew we had to complete our task. If we didn’t do a good and complete job, Grammy would not be pleased, and that meant trouble … for us.

She stood and watched us fold the first few pages. Okay. That’s good. Keep it up until you’re finished. I’ll be in the kitchen.

We looked into her black, beady eyes and said, Yes, Grammy.

The process involved opening to the first page of a Sears or Montgomery Ward catalogue and folding it from the upper-right corner toward the lower-left corner and making a sharp, straight seam down the edge of the folded paper. It took me a couple hours to complete the task because of my small hands and the typical five-year-old’s lack of coordination.

Jon folded the pages much faster. Hurry, he said, so we can get back outside.

Grammy, never far away, kept track of our progress and knew when we finished. She took Jon’s, opened a door, and set the catalogue against the inside edge to hold the door open. On her way back to the kitchen, she said something like, Come on, Barry, speed it up.

I don’t think she was so much showing impatience as informing me that when assigned a task, I had to finish it. Not a terrible life lesson, but I knew I couldn’t keep up with Jon.

When completed, the catalogues’ bottom halves doubled in thickness. The catalogues were more stable with most of the weight on the bottom half. Our busy-work provided fine doorstops for Grammy.

What she did with all those extra catalogue doorstops remains a mystery. The house had five interior doors, and it’s not as if they wore out in a short time, since they sat on the floor. Maybe they got kicked around a lot and ruined after only a few months.

If the weather cleared up, she usually sent us outside, and that suited us just fine. When Jon got itchy to go outside and Grammy wasn’t in sight, he’d finish my doorstop and we’d get to the great outdoors sooner.

Grammy was always glad to see us, but when we didn’t heed her commands, she transformed into the Wicked Witch of the West, and we knew we were in for it. It was the white birch switch about as long as a whip. If we didn’t go to her right away when called or if we committed some other small infraction, Grammy took the white birch switch to either or both of us. When that whip snapped itself around my legs, I knew I’d been punished.

The switching didn’t exactly endear her to me. Sometimes I thought she was mean. It appeared she liked taking the switch to us simply to remind us of who was in charge and that her orders had to be carried out immediately, without any sass or dragging of feet. She was nothing like my mommy.

Once, she called to us after Jon and I had climbed halfway up a pine tree. I looked up at Jon, several limbs above, just as a few pieces of bark dropped from Jon’s sneaker toward my face. I jerked my head from its path. Bits of bark bounced off my shoulder.

He said, I’m going to climb higher. I’ll catch up with you on the way down.

Good, I’m starting now.

Jon knew my descent was snaillike, compared to my worm-speed climb up, because I couldn’t see the limbs below me very well. I didn’t like to stretch too far to land my toes on the next limb for fear of losing my grip and falling.

A couple minutes later, Jon’s feet scraped on bark one limb above my head. Jump down, Barry. We need to hurry.

I flopped onto the ground and rolled out of the way. Jon landed on his feet in the same spot.

I saw Grammy in the window, watching us run across the road. Maybe we’re okay. Then she appeared in the doorway, switch in hand, just as I thought we’d made it. Uh-oh.

She advanced to meet us. How many times have I told you to come when I call, not minutes later?

We were halfway up a pine tree, Grammy, Jon said. He showed her his pitchy palms.

Her thick hands fingered the big end of the birch switch. The smaller, more flexible end rested on the ground.

I said, I’m sorry I couldn’t climb down faster.

You need to be taught a lesson, again.

I howled after the first snap around my legs … and the second. Nothing can hurt more than this. Not even falling out of a tree. She stopped at two lashes. Grammy must believe I really am sorry.

When reminiscing, I’ve often wondered if she obtained such a high degree of proficiency by switching her own eight children. Perhaps that is why Dad was not all that loving a person, at least outwardly, or maybe he simply didn’t know how to show love. I wanted to run into Mommy’s waiting arms, but she was working.

Jon may have been lashed too, but I don’t remember. Neither does he.

At the time, I didn’t realize that Grammy and Dad favored Jon, but I became aware of it by the time I was ten. I wonder if it had something to do with his loss of three fingers on his right hand in a milking machine motor when he was four, in addition to his being the oldest.

Dad said he heard Jon’s scream when the accident happened and rushed him to Hardwick Hospital, where they sewed the three fingers back onto his hand. The hand remained heavily bandaged for a long time, during which he learned to use his left hand. At the end of the healing process, his middle and ring fingers had healed and become fully functional. His little finger remained a stub.

Despite the injury, or because of it, Jon became an excellent left-handed pitcher. I struggled to keep up, to be as good as he was. I didn’t think about goals back then, but I clearly developed some, however undefined.

~ 2 ~

MY PARENTS

Before moving to the village, Dad owned a small farm in Walden for several years. Only a few miles away, his father—Grammy’s husband—still operated his own smaller farm.

After herding the cows into the barn and closing the stanchions, Dad gave them each a scoop of grain. He followed that with the late afternoon milking of the eighteen to twenty cows. He moved the milking machine from cow to cow, always in the same order and from the same side. After moving the apparatus from one cow and hooking it up to the next, he grabbed the milk pail and squatted next to the cow, and hand-milked, or stripped, her until she was dry.

When the milking was finished, Dad went to the house to eat the meal Mommy had prepared for us. Then Mommy did the dishes and went to the barn. She cleaned the cows’ iron drinking bowls, scraped the cows’ mess into the gutter, spread sawdust on the raised area from the gutter to the stanchions (the area where the cows stood), and along the walking area. In addition, from late fall until spring when the cows were kept inside, she lugged bales of hay from the mow, took off the tight baler twine, and fed the cows the hay.

In later years, Uncle Pete’s wife, Aunt Helen, told me about how hard Mommy worked in our barn. She said that a number of times when she and Uncle Pete visited after normal chores’ time, the barn lights were on, and they knew what that meant. Uncle Pete headed to the barn to help Mommy finish up.

Aunt Helen said that when she walked into the house, Dad had The Sporting News in his hands. He talked to her a little bit—but paid much more attention to his newspaper—until Mommy and Pete finished the chores and arrived at the house. Dad never lost his ability to delegate jobs. I’ve often wondered why he didn’t go out and work with Mommy, but I never asked. Kids didn’t question adults, and we did not express feelings.

He loved to play baseball and talk sports. He said he inherited the love of sports from his father, who had organized and run a baseball Town Team. They played against teams from nearby towns including Glover, Barton, Orleans, Craftsbury, and others. Game time was one o’clock on Sunday afternoons. Dad went to games with his father, Ernest, and learned baseball basics and strategy. He used the gleaned knowledge when he played the game and, later, when he coached Little League and Babe Ruth League teams that included Jon and me.

Grampa Dimick loved the Boston Red Sox. He passed his love on to Dad, who became a huge fan. Dad attended games at Fenway Park many times and took our Little League team to Fenway several times.

Dad couldn’t say enough about Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio (brother of Joe), and a few others. Small surprise that Jon and I would become lifelong Boston fans. How could we not, after we saw the great Ted Williams, also known as The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame, The Thumper, and The Kid, with our own eyes?

Dad played shortstop and pitched with the Barre Post #10 American Legion team that was loaded with talent, including brothers Bill and Harry Collins. The Boston Braves signed Dad in 1951. They assigned him to the Industrial League, where he played for the Mills Mill minor league team near Spartanburg, South Carolina, as a pitcher. Apparently, it wasn’t only at home that he liked to talk. His teammates bestowed the nickname Windy on him, a play on his given name, Wendell. I have a few clippings that Mommy saved from when I was one year old. In one, he’s wearing his uniform and holding me in his arms. He was a very good pitcher and hitter.

After Dad moved us to East Hardwick, my mommy, Barbara, worked at the Highland Lodge on Caspian Lake, in Greensboro. She cleaned guest rooms in the lodge and the cabins on the property.

Everett Lyles owned and operated Lyles’ Service Station in the center of the village. Summer campers on Caspian Lake often asked him to enlist locals for odd jobs.

He recruited Mommy to help some campers clean their camps and to work for him at his service station when she wasn’t working at the lodge. She performed a number of automobile-related activities, including pumping gas, washing vehicles, and changing tires and oil. She must have cleaned up well after working at Lyles’, because she was always spotless at home.

When we arrived at Grammy Dimick’s the morning of August 5, 1955, she greeted me with an extra-big smile. Morning, Barry. Only two more days and you’ll be six years old. She patted my head.

I can’t wait. Then Jon will be only one year older than I am. Being only a year younger makes me feel a little closer to equal with my big brother.

Go on in the house now, boys. I’ll be there in a minute.

I brushed by her. Grammy spoke to Dad for a minute. Jon and I never knew what they said because she’d told us to go into the house and that’s what we did, especially with Dad watching and memories of the switch ever lingering. Not that we minded going in. The aroma of freshly baked bread greeted us. Yum!

Maybe she told Dad she’d bake a birthday apple pie for me. Jon and I loved her pies even more than her homemade bread and we thought her cakes were wonderful, too. We never got enough.

After eating our slices of toast with raspberry jam, Jon and I spent the whole sunny morning outside.

From halfway up one of Grammy’s Duchess apple trees, I said, Dad’s almost here.

Jon turned when he heard the sound of tires crunching on gravel. Let’s wait for him to call us. The apples are almost ripe. I’m going to have another one.

Me too.

Dad got out of the car and leaned against it with his head down and arms hanging for a minute or two. He was late. He usually went in to speak to Grammy and then came right out and called for us to go home. This time he went in and didn’t come out for a long while. When we saw him again, he called us to the house, where Grammy ushered us across the kitchen and into the living room.

Sit down, boys, she said, on the couch.

Dad stood in front of us, with Grammy off to the side. No smile creased his face or Grammy’s. They both looked serious.

Uh-oh. What did we do now?

Dad paused, looked at the ceiling, and took a deep breath. I got home from my mail route a few minutes early today. I got out of the car and headed toward the house. When I stepped on the porch, I heard a gunshot. Again, he looked up at the ceiling and paused, his face red as a male cardinal.

Why is he looking at the ceiling? I looked up, too. No fly or mosquito there.

He took another big breath, and spoke slowly, as if replaying a film, frame by frame. I ran inside … calling your mother’s name. She didn’t answer. I found her upstairs … next to our bed … my 12-gauge shotgun … next to her. She’s dead.

~ 3 ~

DISBELIEF

Dad took a minute, alternately watching my brother and me. His eyes were only half open and his forehead looked crinkled, but no tears escaped.

Stunned, I could only stare at Dad. My five-year-old mind spun.

My older brother asked, Why would Mommy do that?

I don’t know, he responded. That’s why I’m late getting here to pick you up. I had to answer police questions for well over an hour.

Jon spoke up again. Why were police there?

I called the hospital for an ambulance, and someone at the hospital called the police, who have to investigate all deaths that occur outside the hospital. They questioned me at length because your mother didn’t leave a note explaining why she did what she did. Most people who commit suicide leave a note explaining why. Your mother didn’t.

But why did she do it? Jon said.

Again, Dad’s response came in pieces. "Maybe she was thinking about it … and when I got home early … it surprised her …