Bingo Road
“Remember when we could barely make it up this hill on bikes?” Art says to me.
“It seemed much steeper then, “ I reply
This was where we came to bike because it was flat, except for this slight incline.
“How come we had to walk up this hill? “ I ask as we easily ascend without being winded.
Art and I are on Bingo Road on an early morning walk. We drove down from Great Hawk above the clouds into the early morning fog. We parked at the first Green Mountain Forest sign where we have stopped many times. Today will be be one of the last warm days of summer. It’s cool and fresh under the cover of the tall maples and pines that have grown together forming a canopy over the road. We start our familiar walk along Bingo Brook, recognizing each familiar landmark along the way.
Bingo Brook has changed since Hurricane Irene barreled through central Vermont nine years ago this summer. Much of Bingo Road was torn away and has been rebuilt. The brook now has more big rocks and boulders than it ever did. What used to be a gushing stream has
turned into a trickle of water meandering by rocks waiting for rain and snow melt. There is a drought in Vermont right now and the mini water falls are dried up.
There are no other walkers and no cars have come by. We are alone on Bingo Road where we have walked for thirty years. I pass another Green Mountain Forest sign and I think about Mother who came often for picnics down here. That was fifty years ago when she spent summers at the house they built on Gt. Hawk. She was not a hiker and could only walk on the flat but nothing deterred her from dropping everything to announce , “I’m going on a picnic down to Bingo...”
Three quarters of a mile up the road I see the edge of Harlan’s property as we come out of the tree cover into a wide open sunny space. Harlan, lives “off the grid” in a handsome brown farmhouse with green shutters. His long and narrow property in this valley is neatly mowed up to the extensive vegetable garden. As we get closer to the house we see a man sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch.
“Could that be Harlan?” I ask Art.
“Harlan,” Art calls out. “It’s us, the Aaronson’s .” in a loud voice. “We are back ...”
A white haired man starts to get up but then sits back down with his cup of coffee in hand and asks us how we are doing. He looks the same with his snow white hair, cut shorter now.
Harlan delivered mail in his truck for twenty years when we lived here. He is now retired with time to sit on the front porch. We comment on the beauty of his spot.
“Best decision, I ever made,” Harlan says to us, referring to his idyllic private piece of Vermont.
In his years as a mailman Harlan knew every person in the town of Rochester (population 1200) by name. He probably knew a lot more about all of us than we ever guessed simply by the mail we got He’d come up our steep Sparrow Hawk Road, winter or summer, snow or rain, mud season or not , stop at the bottom of our long driveway to bring us mail. In those days he wore his graying hair long, pulled back in a pony tail. He was a slight man with a fair complexion and a healthy, ruddy look from the long days he spent outdoors. Rumors spread around town about Harlan...mostly about the women in his life and/or his drinking habits. We never knew Harlan’s real story but a few years ago on a walk down Bingo we encountered him in his garden with several grandchildren. “He must have had a wife at some point in his life,” I said to Art.
We walk past Harlan’s house to where there is a concrete bridge that crosses Bingo Brook and a turnaround with a sign indicating this is as far as emergency vehicles will go. I remember how in the winter the road beyond Harlan’s is never plowed as it continues up the valley. This is a popular cross country ski and snowshoe track in the winter.
Today the wildflowers abound amongst the golden rod, paint brush, black eyed Susan’s and Queen Anne’s lace. There is complete silence and we still have not encountered another person nor a car. We head up to the Pine Gap Trail but decide we’ll save it for another day as it is a five mile loop on a narrow path and we don’t have our hiking poles.
There are campsites available from the National Forest Service on down Bingo Road but perhaps due to Covid, the middle of the week and after Labor Day there are no campers around. We turn around and head back the way we came the mile or more to our car. A girl on a racing bike zips past us and a Jeep with New York license plates goes by with a duffle bag on the roof as if it’s headed to one of those deserted camps that seem impossible to get to.
I have begun to notice the turning of the leaves in just the 10 days we have been in Vermont. Today I see yellow and reds coming out on the maples. It’s a reminder of how quickly the fall comes to this part of the world...
As we get back to the car we don’t have time to go up the road to the old cemetery to walk around as we always do. There are many Civil War gravestones in this cemetery that is one of four in and around the town of Rochester.
“Let’s come back this weekend to visit the cemetery,” I say to Art.
Nothing ever changes on Bingo Road. We have been walking it, biking it, and even snowshoeing on it for the past 30 years. It is comforting to know that there are still places in the world where the landscape stays the same. It feels secure in a world that is transformed daily by development, climate change, and natural disasters. Mom and Dad walked Bingo Road fifty years ago and Art and I have walked it today....I know it will be here just as we remember it whether we return or not.
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We park on the Rochester Town Park and walk the half block past the Irving gas station to Sandy’s Books and Bakery in Rochester. Sandy’s used to be housed in one small two story house but now has expanded into a second house next door called The Bookery.
Heading up to the front porch of the Bookery we go through what could be an English cottage garden. Sandy has planted sunflowers, now in full bloom, Black Eyed Susans and an array casual perennials that abound in the early September sunlight.
Entering the Bookery I spot Sandy sitting at a desk in the corner. She glances up and without skipping a beat says , “Hi Art, hi Kristina...nice to see you back”.
We have not seen her since last summer. She has a way of greeting us that makes me feel like we never moved away. It has been nine years since we have been residents here.
I can see she is busy and yet she stops to talk for a minute. Actually, no one in Rochester, Vermont is ever too preoccupied to talk. It is what you do. I learned this years ago when we bought a house in Rochester and then lived here full time. You never walked by anyone without inquiring about them and exchanging news or weather before going your separate ways.
“How has business, been during the pandemic?” Art asks her.
“It’s OK,” she answers. “We opened in mid -June but as you can see we are not open all the hours and days we used to be. Business is OK and I’ve been lucky to have dedicated workers who wanted to come back.”
Then she adds with some pride, ”and we offer the ONLY public rest room in town that is open.” I know the gas station has closed their public rest room as has the Rochester Cafe which is now only open for takeout food, and the library is closed to the public. There are no other restrooms town.
Rochester, may be small with a “downtown” that is barely two blocks long. It is on Route #100 which is the main highway going north and south up the spine of Vermont. It’s a busy route for people heading to Sugarbush and Stowe ski resorts and to Burlington and South to Killington ski area and further to Londonderry and Mt. Snow and the southern part of the state. Tourists stop frequently in Rochester to walk around the picturesque Vermont town with a Town Park, a gazebo for summer concerts, a white church and steeple, a public library with stain glassed windows, one gas station, and several restaurants and one or two Bed and Breakfast places.
Sandy’s Books and Bakery has become a mainstay of Rochester not only because she is on Main Street but because she has so perfectly combined an eclectic bookstore, and gift shop with an eat-in and take out Cafe of homemade food. Mismatched tables and chairs are tucked here and there amongst packed bookshelves and spill out onto the side porch which faces the gas station. There is a second floor accessed by a narrow staircase with three rooms with book shelves full of used and new books shelved together. Surrounding the house she has planted a splendor of flowering bushes and plants which brighten the downtown area. Coming to her store is like discovering an English cottage and wandering in to be enthralled with much to look at. She is an experienced book person, a creative cook, and a natural gardener.
I’ve know Sandy Lincoln for 25 years, ever since she came to Rochester. She has a lifetime of experience working in bookstores including 15 years at the well-known Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vt. She opened a bookstore in Brandon and then applied and was appointed town librarian in Rochester. She had no library training but she could tell you about every book on the shelf, recommend one or more, and had wonderful contacts for planning library programs. She did not stay long as the “librarian”. Instead, she helped her partner, Larry research and begin his business which is now the Vermont Soap Company in Middlebury. She and Larry bought land in Rochester and built a home in the North Hollow while she started her own books and bakery business in Rochester. They are the quintessential small town entrepreneurs.
I look forward to spending time at the bookstore every summer when I return to Rochester . I look forward to buying the unusual, artistic, and affordable greeting cards to take home and use throughout the year. I find books that are classic “gems”, used and affordable Interspersed among the books are used and new artworks, paintings by local artists with a Vermont theme, gift items like Vermont Soap Products, jewelry made by artisans who live in the community. I recognize the names ...people that I know who still live in and around Rochester. All is displayed with an air of disarray that makes you want to just stay and look more in case you might have missed a treasure of some kind.
Art and I finally choose our cards and books and head to the back of the main store where the coffee and bakery items are sold to make our purchases. Sandy walks by in the kitchen, sees us again, and sticking her head out says, “Thanks so much for coming in...it’s great to see you both.”
Sandy’s Books and Bakery is where I look forward to going more than anywhere else in town. I know Sandy and her history, but she is unique in her knowledge of books and her maintaining a thriving business in a town of 1200 in central Vermont.
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