Ten thousand Vermonters showed up for that show. Our walking route carried us through a covered bridge, into Woodstock's cemetery and along side streets and alleys. Barr told of the days when five competing weekly papers fought for the hearts and minds of Woodstock readers - and the wallets of advertisers. He dropped the third strike. I don't know for sure, but old Chevy probably fell down about then.
Walking tours give the kind of inside stuff that guidebooks miss.
Green and white, Barr noted, were still her school's colors. I was not, she said, the first to be so confused. Later in the day I climbed Mount Tom, more a hill than actual mountain until the last 100 yards, but a steamy 50-minute climb on a hot afternoon. It was well worth the effort, though. The payoff was a postcard as broad as the horizon, a stunning overview of Woodstock and the Ottaquechee, of red barns and green fields cut out of the forest that wrapped the foothills of Vermont's Green Mountains.