Delectations

My great-grandfather Uriel came down out of these hills around 1840, opportunities in Peru, Vermont being rather limited in those days. Many others did likewise. Peru just sat there in its little hollow in the mountains, slowly contracting as the farms failed one by one and the woods reclaimed the stony pastures. When I wandered through in 1962, the town consisted of a general store with a gas pump, a little post office, a church and a few tidy old houses—a tiny settlement (population two hundred-something) tucked away on a back road, nice enough, with trees, dusty streets, interesting headstones in the graveyard.

Eight years later it’s still nice enough— but the rot of progress is setting in. Now there is a Ski Lodge (a reasonably attractive one, not plastic-ugly like most that have sprung up in Vermont in the past few years), and the proprietor of that general store has taken to decorating the place with Quaint Old Signs.

CS

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C. H. Simonds

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Vermont

My great-grandfather Uriel came down out of these hills around 1840, opportunities in Peru, Vermont being rather limited in those days. Many others did likewise. Peru just sat there in its little hollow in the mountains, slowly contracting as the farms failed one by one and the woods reclaimed the stony pastures. When I wandered through in 1962, the town consisted of a general store with a gas pump, a little post office, a church and a few tidy old houses—a tiny settlement (population two hundred-something) tucked away on a back road, nice enough, with trees, dusty streets, interesting headstones in the graveyard.

Eight years later it’s still nice enough— but the rot of progress is setting in. Now there is a Ski Lodge (a reasonably attractive one, not plastic-ugly like most that have sprung up in Vermont in the past few years), and the proprietor of that general store has taken to decorating the place with Quaint Old Signs.