"You Curtsy, I'll Bow"

The small town of Westminster West, Vermont where our family lived was unique in that many of the townspeople had a relaxed outlook on life. Even now, going back to visit after 30 years it is plain to see that no one has bothered to mow the lawns, trim the trees or paint the barns after all these years. To do these things would take them away from...relaxing.

One of the cultural features of the town is that everyone in town called everyone else by their first names. Kids often referred to their own parents by their first names and when we were speaking to each other about adults we never referred to them as 'Mr." or "Mrs." In seventh grade the principle of the Putney Grammar School was called, Whit. The librarian was referred to as, Dorritt. Our grammar school English teacher was the voluptuous, Silvia Smith (who made us read a really terrible book called 'The Marble Faun' by Nathanial Hawthorne). My friend Richard's father was named, Simon and our second grade teacher was simply called, Claire. My mother was, Ann and my father was, Russ and so on. Our neighbor, Samuel would go on to found Stonyfield Farm and our eighth grade teacher was simply known as, Bob.

Think of what it must have been like to be a kid in a town that sometimes seemed like a sort of hippie commune. The whole village would go up on a hillside and camp out in the high summer or go sledding in the winter. If I missed the bus to school I had to hitch hike to get to class. There were real town meetings and Halloween gatherings in the village Grange Hall with bobbing for apples and everything. That was in the days before herpes so you could get away with sticking your face in a warm tub of water full of half chewed apples and everyone elses drool floating on top.

It seemed that this creative and imaginative culture would serve the kids well to help deconstruct the notion that adults were an authority to be feared in the world. The kids in our town related to adults without fear or intimidation and I remember it being a really wonderful and enriching environment. My brothers are now respected artists, my sisters are health care professionals, my father has worked in broadcasting his whole life and my mother is a well respected author and lives on the West Bank in Israel. We are all creative and imaginative people who have managed to navigate life's hills and valleys with some success.

Life's journey is rough enough so giving the kids a culture to grow in without authority figures or titles is an interesting way of empowering them and preparing them to meet challenges as adults.