Our
best crop
June 14, 2001
Dear Meriwether,
Tonight you graduated from Charlotte Central School. Kindergarten through
eighth grade; nine years is a long time. You looked so beautiful in your
long white dress as you stood with your classmates at the front of the
gym.
Last week after the soccer game, you told me of playing soccer in kindergarten
on the very same field. During a game, you and your classmates would drift
away to the swings and sliding boards. So much has changed in eight years.
The yellow flowers lining the roads tonight on the way to school reminded
me of a dear friend. Harry A. MacDonald. He was instrumental in breeding
the birdsfoot trefoil that grows well in poor, dry soil and is an important
honey plant in Vermont. Mac was truly a man of the soil; he worked at
a beef research station in his native Nova Scotia, later ran a rice experimental
station in the Philippines, and for years taught hundreds of students
at college.
Mac thought that I worked too hard and spent too much time working with
the bees. He was close to the land, but his first priority was his family
and students. He and his wife had a camp on Lake Carmi in Franklin, and
I saw them throughout the summer. The last time I saw him, you were one
year old. I carried you in my arms and greeted him. He said "Hello",
and put his hand on mine as if he really wanted to stop me and make me
think about what he was about to say. His voice and hand were shaking
in those older years, but I'll never forget how clear the message was,
"You know, she's your best crop."
These words still continue to reverberate years later for me in Vermont.
Through the range of people that I know and work with in agriculture,
from the crew at the honey house, dairy farmers, vegetable growers, and
those who maple sugar, the most important Vermont crop continues to be
our people. We are independent. We are strong. We have values that transcend
cultural fluctuations in the rest of the country. We love this land.
Meriwether, you and your younger sister Charlotte are truly our best crop.
love, Dad
on Mt. Marcy in the High Peaks of the Adirondack
Mountains,
the highest point in New York State, August 2002
This is where Theodore Roosevelt heard that he was President of the US
in 1900,
having ascended from Vice President.
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